


falling down with a crashing sound

by red_b_rackham



Series: Rupture [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: (flies into the sun), (my apologies to Laura Barton), Action/Adventure, Angst, Drama, Found Family, Friendship, Gen, Minor Doctor Who Crossover, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Post-Iron Man 3, Pre-Thor: The Dark World, Survival, Team Dynamics, Time Travel, WIP Bang, WIP Big Bang 2020, but then it's spoilery after that for those so just fyi, gen - Freeform, it has been 84 years, it is done, minor Bruce/OFC, minor Clint/Natasha - Freeform, minor Doctor/Rose (implied), minor Steve/Peggy (past), minor Thor/Jane - Freeform, minor Tony/Pepper - Freeform, novel length fic, part 3 of 3, the last couple of chapters has everybody but i'm not tagging them all, very dubious science but just go with it, wibbly wobbly timey wimey, you can read UP TO the last couple chapters WITHOUT having read parts 1 and 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 59,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25845739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_b_rackham/pseuds/red_b_rackham
Summary: PART 3 - After a mission goes horribly wrong, the Avengers end up separated and scattered in time. A rash decision forces Thor to confront his past, while Bruce struggles to get them all back home where they belong—both of them try to figure out just what it means to be an Avenger.(Part 3 of a 3 part epic. Conclusion.)(You can read all but the last few chapters of this without having read Part 1 and 2. They are linked but separate enough you can read out of order - until the last few chapters of Part 3, which will full on spoil 1 and 2, just fyi!!)
Series: Rupture [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/581614
Comments: 57
Kudos: 14
Collections: WIP Big Bang Challenge 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have stuck with me this long, I don’t know how you did it and thank you beyond words – I hope this conclusion was worth the journey and worth the wait in between parts and chapters. I hope it can help you get through this absolutely wild time we’re all having. <3 I could write another novel on the journey it took to get to this final story but I won’t. Instead, just: thank you for reading. :) 
> 
> Thank you to the literal army of pals that came on this ride over the years, especially to my ever present, ever wonderful beta [stars_inthe_sky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stars_inthe_sky) (this fic would never exist without her), and also to the incredible Hope (thatwanderingwriter) and Joy ([finaljoy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/finaljoy/pseuds/finaljoy)) who have been the most encouraging, brilliant writing buddies a girl could ask for. Thank you to The Creator Library crew for your gushing and brainstorming, Inky for the Thor help, and Cari for the Bruce help. <3 
> 
> Thank you to Ragna for all the work you are doing for WIP Bang, and to WIP Bang for giving me a deadline, and to university for not killing me before I could finish this. 
> 
> FANMIX for this fic by the lovely Ragna is HERE. GO LISTEN!!
> 
> Enjoy. <3
> 
> * * *
> 
> _THINGS YOU SHOULD PROBS KNOW BEFORE READING PART 3:_  
>  - **this starts in 2013**  
>  -it’s about time travel and the Avengers  
> -entirely reliant on Marvel Cinematic Universe canon, characters, etc. with a variety of sneaky or not-so-sneaky references to other things throughout the entire epic  
> -there is a Doctor Who crossover element in Part #3, but you do not need to have seen Doctor Who to read. It’s just a bonus for the Whovians in the crowd, and for those who aren’t, they’re just OCs. ;)  
> -reading [part 1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8495947) and [part 2](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10485939) is helpful but not required until the very last few chapters, as most of the rest of the story is quite separate.
> 
> * * *

* * *

**[ THOR ]**

_“I was tracking a hole in the fabric of reality. Call it a hobby.” –The Doctor_

* * *

Hector Lazarus, a small man with troublesome qualities, had a lot to say. 

He spoke of suffering peril as a result of the Avengers’ actions. How he had arrived in this realm to forever forestall the Avengers with his peculiar machine, situated in the center of the room. At first, it gave off a pinkish glow and hissed softly; shortly, the glow brightened and the noise grew louder. Lazarus was filled with mirth at the sight. 

Thor decided he’d heard quite enough from the man, and based on his team’s expressions, so had they. 

He rammed his elbow into Lazarus’ face. The scientist collapsed to the floor, out cold. Bruce’s lips quirked up in a pleased half-smile, though his shoulders were still stiff with tension. With an equal smirk, Thor set Mjolnir down atop Lazarus’ chest, though gently so as not to crush the man’s ribs. It would ensure he did not rise while the team dismantled his machine.

Without warning, there was a great clamor like a harsh storm, and the floor beneath Thor’s feet trembled. Heavy steel doors crashed down, ensnaring the team and blocking any possible exit. They had naught but moments to react.

_One one-thousand._

Thor looked to the roof—perhaps he could break them out that way? He held his arm out to call Mjolnir up.

_Two one-thousand._

The scientist’s device let loose a penetrating tone, then a peculiar whirring. Thor jumped, hammer raised. Bruce put his arms out in front of him towards the bomb as if to contain it. 

_Three one-thousand._

Frigid air erupted fiercely around the team, knocking them backwards. Thor hit the ceiling and fell. It was too bright to discern anything, and he plummeted encompassed by noise and light, his yell sucked away in the wind.

Then, nothing.

_Four one-thousand._

  
  


~

  
  


Thor tried to sit up, and he quickly regretted it. The world tilted and he laid his head back down onto—grass?—eyes shut as his head slowed its spinning. It was odd that there would be grass under him. He’d been in some sort of old house a moment ago...

When his head stopped spinning, he cracked open his eyes and blue flooded his vision. A gentle, chilly breeze tickled his hair. Gingerly, he raised himself to a sitting position (it went better this time) and discovered that he was absolutely not in a house. High above was a brilliant blue sky dotted with low, gray clouds. Below him was brownish grass and dirt, footprints haphazardly imprinted in it, headed in every direction. Stuck in the ground surrounding him were towering gray boulders.

Thor squinted up at them. His head swirled with another brief dizzy spell that had him massaging his temples. Part of the sensation was from crashing into the ceiling of the house, he knew, but whatever that explosion had been had affected him in other ways.

Chatter floated through the air from a distance: people talking, someone yelling, though not in an alarming manner.

_What in the name of the Allfather happened?_

He took a few deep breaths to clear his head as footsteps approached. A peculiar Midgardian woman advanced at an unhurried pace. She was small, perhaps no taller than his Lady Jane, though this woman had golden fair hair. She wore a dark jacket with pink shirt sleeves peeking out below the cuffs.

Those weren’t the things that made her peculiar, though. No, it was the bizarre glasses perched on her nose: white frames with one lens colored red and one colored blue.

She gave a low whistle as she stopped a few feet before Thor. “Yep,” she said. “Covered with it. Thought as much.”

Thor wrinkled his brow and glanced down at himself. Aside from his armor and clothes, it was not clear what he was apparently “covered” with.

The blonde dug into her jacket pocket and Thor tensed— _where was Mjolnir?_ He expected a threat, but instead she unfolded a wallet of sorts and held it out for Thor to inspect.

“Rose Tyler, Torchwood.” She snapped the badge back up and tucked it away again after he’d had a moment to view it. She crossed her arms over her chest. “I assume S.H.I.E.L.D. sent you?”

Thor pulled himself to his feet. The woman’s accented speech sounded somewhat familiar, though glancing at his surroundings, Thor noted that there was nothing else here that he recognized.

“I apologize, my lady,” he said. “I am…I am not quite sure…” He took a breath. The last thing he remembered was reaching for his hammer…an explosion of light... _the bomb_.

There was no sign of his companions, though there were a great many people not far away, gathered on a wide pathway. They watched him and the woman with intense curiosity. Someone dressed in black and sporting a hat ringed with a checkered pattern, asked people to remain behind a yellow line of shining ribbon.

“Director Fury? Of S.H.I.E.L.D.?” Rose clarified, removing her glasses and sliding them into her jacket pocket. “He sent you, didn’t he? Because you are clearly not the party I was waiting for, but you _are_ covered in Void Stuff.”

Thor hesitated. He had learned much in his time with the Avengers and not immediately placing his trust in every Midgardian he met was one of them. Though he was still more inclined to believe the best of the people he met, Tony had promised, “Almost everyone is out to screw you, so keep your eyes open, big boy, and don’t trust everything thrown your way.”

Apparently his momentary silence was enough, however, as then Rose flopped her arms to her sides and huffed.

“That man! He thinks because S.H.I.E.L.D.’s base is in almighty America, it gives him jurisdiction over _everything_.” Rose shook her head. “I don’t know how many times I have to have the discussion with him that between Torchwood and UNIT, we have Europe covered, so he can stop horning in on our operations. I’m perfectly willing to collaborate when it’s necessary, if he asks nicely! You can tell him that the situation with the Mekzatorians is _completely_ under control, so thanks but no thanks for the backup!”

Thor stared.

Rose exhaled in a rush, blowing her hair out of her face. “Sorry, I’m sure you’re very good, I didn’t mean to—it’s just that we really do have the situation handled. So you can politely inform Director Fury that we are _fine_ , here, thank you.” As an afterthought, she added, “And next time he insists on ‘helping’, he should just send one of you like a normal person, you know, in a jet or via super-powered flight or something, instead of through the Void. Never know what could go wrong there.”

While Rose spoke, Thor kept checking over his shoulder, hoping one of his teammates was nearby, but there was no sign of anyone. He had no idea what “situation” Rose was referring to; he had his own matters to return to.

“Anyways, sorry, that was very rude of me,” Rose ducked her head and jabbed her hands in her pockets.

Thor barely heard her. “Where am I?” he finally asked.

“Jolly old England,” Rose replied. “Northern hemisphere, planet Earth. Stonehenge, to be exact. Isn’t that where Fury wanted you to land?”

“England?”

Thor knew the name from prior visits to Midgard and from atlases he’d studied in the Avengers Tower library. He enjoyed spending time there; it was peaceful and reminded him of his mother and his brother—not the man who’d ravaged Midgard, but the Loki he’d grown up with, loved, and still missed dearly.

But as far as he knew, by human standards, England was far from New York. So how had he ended up _here_? Perhaps Tony and Bruce understood what had happened after the bomb’s detonation. If only one of them were here to clarify things...

Thor frowned. “No, I am not supposed to be here.”

“Oh? Where _are_ you supposed to be?”

“New York,” he said, studying Rose’s reaction.

Rose was about to say something when she stopped, her mouth forming a wide ‘O’ of surprise. A wave of understanding washed over her features. She looked up him and down with a fresh wave of recognition.

“Oh…oh of course...” she said, her voice quiet. “ _Of course_ , yeah. You’re Thor—you’re one of the Lost Superheroes.”

Thor’s heart sank like a rock tumbling down a well. _Oh_. That did _not_ bode well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapters will be coming leading up to my official WIP Bang posting date of Sept 17 - first two are going up right away to get you going ;D - so keep a weather eye out for those and hang on to your butts because here we _goooo._ :D


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

**[ BRUCE ]**

_“If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious shit.” – Doc Brown, Back to the Future_

* * *

Waking up uncomfortable, sore, and disoriented was nothing new to Bruce.

He pulled himself up out of the dirt crater he found himself lying in. The last thing he remembered was Lazarus’ bomb exploding in their faces, and while clearly the Other Guy had burst forth to protect Bruce from harm, his friends had no such guarantees. Hoping the rest of the team was all right, he awkwardly clambered to his feet and frowned at his lack of clothing.

_So, where am I?_

The most immediate answer was “a construction site,” evidently situated on the edge of a large, green park. Bulldozers, pylons, and debris surrounded him, though everything was still and quiet. The sky above his head was mostly dark, painted with shades of gradually lighter blue, disappearing behind the skyscrapers beyond the park. Bruce figured that it wasn’t quite dawn.

His head swirled with a wave of dizziness and he took a few, deep breaths to clear it. It helped, though he still felt unsteady and off.

Bruce was startled by a noise behind him and whipped around, ready to attack and acutely aware of his state of undress. It was no immediate threat,though—only an older homeless man pushing a shopping cart full of garbage bags, clothes, and cans. He chuckled at Bruce.

“Wow, you must’ve had one helluva night,” the man smirked, laughing with a slight wheeze.

“Yeah, uh…” Bruce flushed and moved behind some of the construction equipment to hide his naked body as much as he could. “Where…where am I?”

“You’re in the Common.”

Bruce cleared his throat. “And…where is that?”

The man scrunched his brow in slight confusion.

“Er, what city?” Bruce elaborated with a wince.

The man stared but grinned, showing off missing canine teeth. “Fella, what were you _on,_ and where can I get some!” He cackled. “You’re in Boston!”

Bruce stared. _Boston?_ Clearly the displacement bomb had done exactly what it was intended to do.

He and Tony had recognized part of the machine almost immediately, though the whole thing was supposed to have only been theoretical. Hypothetically, those components were supposed to be capable of pulling apart the fabric of physical space, taking anyone in the blast radius and dropping them who-knows-where—from the middle of Mongolia to the top of Mount Everest to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean or anywhere in between.

Like Boston. At least it wasn’t winter.

“Where’d you come from, anyway?” the man peered at Bruce curiously.

“Um…” He didn’t know how to answer, but it didn’t seem to matter. The man shrugged and waved his hand at Bruce.

“Ah, don’t matter. Look,” the man dug down into his cart and produced a set of clothes which he tossed to Bruce. “You walk around like that, you’re liable to get arrested—speaking from experience. Take these. I got spares.”

Bruce felt guilty accepting the clothes, but his new friend was right, and his options were limited. Bruce thanked him and got dressed quickly. The gray hoodie was about four sizes too big and grimy, but the pants fit all right. He would make do for now.

The man gave him a thumbs up and trundled away, whistling an unfamiliar tune. Bruce found his way to the park’s border.

As he started down the street, he was at a loss at what to do next. Had the bomb scattered the team across nearby states? The country? The world? The galaxy? Were they dead? He desperately hoped not, but there was no point dwelling on it until he was able to gather more information.

Bruce stopped at a 24-hour convenience store a few blocks down. Inside, between the bathroom and a grubby ATM machine, was a shabby payphone with a cracked, digital screen in the middle. The screen showed the time—6:28 AM—and instructed him to tap a credit card against the screen to proceed with a call.

Well, that wasn’t an option. Bruce rubbed the back of his neck. Instead, he asked the clerk if he could borrow his cell phone to make an emergency call. The guy gave him a long look and Bruce pinned on his best “I am just a harmless physicist” smile before the clerk passed Bruce a little square the size of Bruce’s hand. 

“Nothing overseas,” the guy mumbled. 

Bruce gingerly picked up the square—it was as thin as a CD. He’d never seen anything like it—maybe some fancy next-level thing from Japan? 

“Um…” 

The clerk looked like he already regretted giving over his device. “Just press your thumb to the screen, man.”

“Right, of course,” said Bruce and did just that. The screen turned on, filled with icons and widgets, and it took Bruce a good few seconds to locate the call function. He moved away from the counter towards the back area with the payphone for some privacy.

A few weeks earlier, Fury and Tony had set up an emergency system that the team could utilize if they needed help, got stranded, whatever. Clint had said there wasn’t much of a need when they had JARVIS at the Tower, but Fury insisted on a back-up just in case something happened to Tony’s AI. For perhaps the first time in history, Tony and Fury had actually agreed on something, and so they established a phone number that would connect them to the nearest S.H.I.E.L.D. outpost in case of emergency.

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to recall the number. Steve had made them all memorize it, but his mind was still sluggish and a little off-balance from the blast.

Finally, he dialed, awkwardly holding the little square towards his ear. For a few seconds, there was nothing on the other end, and Bruce wondered with a frown if he’d gotten the number wrong after all. Then a female voice picked up, sounding surprised but like she was trying not to be.

“State your name, please.”

“Um,” said Bruce. “It’s Dr. Banner.”

There was a brief silence on the other end of the line and then the woman said, “I’m sorry, please repeat?”

Bruce wondered if she was new or if he was using the weird little phone wrong. He cleared his throat and said a little louder, “Dr. Bruce Banner. Sorry, uh, I have the right number…right? Is this, uh…” Bruce winced, struggling to recall the code word they were supposed to use. “Is this…Eastwood Outpost?”

He heard clacking on the other end that indicated the woman was typing furiously and he heard the utter confusion in her voice when she came back on. “Sir, would you…repeat your code word?”

“Um, it’s _Jolly Green._ ”

Another long pause. Bruce’s stomach turned uneasily.

“Sorry, um, is there a problem?” he questioned and licked his lips. He curled his fingers into a fist at his side.

“No—apologies, Dr. Banner. This _is_ Eastwood.”

He exhaled with relief and relaxed his hand.

“You said you were in Boston?” the woman asked, her tone tight.

“Yeah,” Bruce replied. “Look, um, I don’t know what to do next here...It’s probably better if I don’t explain everything over the phone. Do I come in, or do you bring me in, or…? I don’t know how this works. This is the first time I’ve used this number since Fury set it up.”

“I can have an agent meet you and direct you to a secure location.”

Bruce hesitated. He would be lying if he didn’t still have some trust issues with S.H.I.E.L.D.—and by _some_ what he really meant was _a lot_ —even after all this time working with them. He didn’t see that he had any other choice at the moment, however, so he agreed.

“Thank you,” the woman replied. “May I ask, Dr. Banner, where…how exactly did you get this number?”

Bruce wrinkled his brow. “Stark and Fury set it up a few weeks ago...like I said.”

He heard background murmuring before the woman returned. “Thank you,” she said pleasantly. “One of our agents will be along to collect you shortly.”

Bruce hung up the phone, thanked the clerk, and gave him his square back. 

“No problem,” said the clerk, although his distrustful expression said the opposite. 

Bruce left the store and headed down the street to have a seat in a bus shelter to wait for S.H.I.E.L.D. Another wave of dizziness pulsed through him and he breathed slow and deep to curb it. He still felt... _off_ in a way he couldn’t put his finger on. The Other Guy was silent, for which Bruce was grateful.

While he waited, hoping the feeling would pass, the sun continued its journey skyward and the city began to wake up around him. Cars rumbled past, building lights switched on, people started their day. Bruce envied their normalcy and ignorance. And pitied it.

It was around this time that Bruce noticed something odd, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on _what_ exactly was odd. He was never much into cars, but a lot of the vehicles he saw looked different. Newer, older, he wasn’t sure—just not quite right. Sleeker? Slimmer? Something, anyway. Tony would know.

Not only the cars, but as people began heading up and down sidewalks to their jobs and daily activities, something was different about a lot of their clothes, too. Fashion was another thing he didn’t exactly pay close attention to, so he couldn’t put a finger on that, either. A woman walking by sported a jacket with spikes on her shoulders, electric blue hair, and neon yellow shorts covered with a skirt so light and flowy it looked intangible. She passed him without a second glance, talking quietly to what Bruce assumed was a Bluetooth earpiece he couldn’t see.

Bruce shook his head to clear it—that bomb had done a number on him if he was worrying about clothes and cars.

He wasn’t waiting long when a black SUV pulled up before him and two people exited the car. One was a tall, slim woman with a blonde ponytail and a gun at her waist, wearing a dark jacket and jeans. The other was a stocky guy in a suit, a couple inches shorter than the woman, with close cropped brown hair. As they approached, the woman wasn’t very good at hiding her surprise when she laid eyes on Bruce. Her counterpart was even worse.

“Oh my God,” the male agent blurted, then shut his mouth with a snap, face flushed.

The woman shot him a glare and faced Bruce again, her features smooth, erasing her initial shock. The action was subtle, but it reminded him of Natasha.

“Dr. Banner?” she asked. She flashed her S.H.I.E.L.D. badge and held out her hand. “Agent Etta Dowry.” Her voice had a hint of a British lilt to it.

“Agent Greg Thomas,” said her partner, jutting his hand forward.

With an amused smile playing at the edges of his lips, Bruce accepted their handshakes one at a time. “Yeah, I’m Bruce Banner. Thanks for coming.”

Etta gestured to the shiny black SUV. “Shall we, sir?”

Bruce climbed into the back with Etta, while Thomas got into the driver’s seat and started it up. The car’s dash and front console were nothing like Bruce had seen before, full of touch screens with only a few small, sleek knobs. Looked expensive and fancy—like something Tony would have outfitted his favorite car with.

As they drove through the streets of Boston, Bruce couldn’t help noticing Thomas shooting furtive glances in the rear-view mirror at the scientist but pretending he wasn’t. Bruce assumed the kid must be star-struck—it wasn’t the first time he’d run into this sort of behavior since the Avengers had become such huge public figures.

He turned to Etta. “I, um, don’t know where anyone else is. Have they…has anyone checked in?”

“No, no one else has checked in.” She managed to sound hesitant yet sure of herself all at once. She looked like she was maybe late 30s, early 40s, but he couldn’t be sure of her clearance level. High enough to collect him, he supposed. 

Bruce frowned. That didn’t ease the growing concern he had that something had gone seriously wrong, beyond the bomb displacing him.

“Sir, what happened?” Etta asked. She said it as if she hadn’t meant to blurt out the question so flatly, but she couldn’t contain her own curiosity.

“Is Coulson…?” Bruce hesitated. 

Usually it was Coulson that the team debriefed with after a mission—especially a mission gone wrong. Since this was the first time Bruce had used the emergency protocol, however, he wasn’t clear on how to proceed. Would she even be able to share any details? 

“Look, I usually speak with Agent Coulson,” he clarified, tucking his hands against his chest. “Um, sorry.”

“Not at all,” Etta replied. Then, smooth and easy, she added, “He’s occupied. I _am_ authorized with the same clearance level, if it makes you feel better. And so is Agent Thomas.” She nodded at the front seat.

Whether her features were open and inviting because of her training or her personality, Bruce couldn’t be sure, but either way he found himself deciding that he liked her and would trust her—well, at a bare minimum, at least, until he could speak with Fury or Phil.

“The last thing I remember is Lazarus’ bomb going off in New York. Then I…woke up here. This morning.” He shrugged. “No idea how the hell I got this far.” He smiled wryly. “That track with the reports you got?”

She shot him a tight smile in return.

“Don’t suppose _you_ know what all happened?” he added hopefully.

He saw a muscle in her jaw twitch before she replied, “No.”

He wasn’t sure if she was lying or simply not allowed to say, and his worry over his missing teammates spiked.

“Director Fury can explain more,” she said firmly before he opened his mouth to ask her any more questions.

Bruce leaned back, still feeling uneasy. “All right.”

The ride took about twenty minutes and then they arrived at the Boston headquarters of S.H.I.E.L.D. Thomas drove them into an underground parkade, past three security checkpoints—one involving a fingerprint scan, which the agent made Bruce do twice before reluctantly letting him through. 

At the next two checkpoints, Bruce received shocked looks and blatant stares from the agents on duty. He grimaced sheepishly at the attention, slumping his shoulders. At least the agents in New York were used to his coming and going.

When the car came to a stop and he stepped out, Bruce wondered if he’d be speaking to Fury by phone—last he’d known, the Director was at the New York base. Not for the first time that morning, however, he wondered how much time had actually passed since the bomb went off. If it’d been more than a few hours, Fury could be anywhere.

The walk through S.H.I.E.L.D.’s corridors was an uncomfortable one. Everyone, it seemed, was as dumb-struck as Agent Thomas had been. The agents stopped in their tracks, gaped openly, exchanged surprised looks with their coworkers, or dropped whatever they were carrying. Bruce stared at his hands and the back of Etta’s ankles as she strode purposefully ahead of him, talking in low tones into her earpiece.

His face burned hot under all the pointed attention. Maybe the Other Guy had done something particularly spectacular while Bruce was out that earned him all this. Tony and Steve always handled the fame of being an Avenger far better than he ever had.

Shortly, they came to a meeting room, dominated by a massive conference table and devoid of other decor. Etta brought him to the middle of the room and stopped, facing the gray doors with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s eagle emblem adorning it, hands behind her back. 

“You can have a seat, if you want,” she suggested.

“I’m good to stand.”

The doors opened and from them, Bruce was surprised to see, came Fury himself. Except the next second after Bruce recognized him, the breath was knocked from his chest as he realized he barely recognized him. Fury was several years older than he had been a day ago, his features lined and worn. He limped heavily, walking with the aid of a cane. His beard was peppered with white, and a thick scar made a jagged line up his jaw to his left cheekbone.

Bruce stared, frozen, a shiver rocketing down his spine. _What the hell…?_

Fury stared right back at Bruce as he neared, his expression hard and unreadable.

“Director…” Bruce began, feeling entirely off kilter.

“They tell me you say you’re Bruce Banner,” Fury stated, coming to a halt several feet before him. “Claim your fingerprints even match our archives.”

Bruce glanced at Etta, who had her gaze trained on Fury. She was stiff, tense, and visibly uncomfortable.

“But I know,” the Director continued, low and fierce. “That is not true and it is not possible. So you better tell me who the hell you really are and why you’re pretending to be Bruce Banner, or I will end you right here and now.”

“Um,” Bruce sputtered. “Sir, I—it’s me. I’m Bruce Banner.”

“Bullshit,” Fury snapped, his good eye glinting with anger. “It can’t be.”

“I…I don’t understand,” Bruce stammered, his heart pounding. _What the hell what the hell what the hell…_ “Where are—where is everyone else? What happened?” He couldn’t feel the Other Guy stirring inside him as his fear and uncertainty rose.

“Look, I do not have the time or the patience to screw around. Who. Are. You? Last chance.”

“I—Bruce Banner. I’m part of the Avengers.” He tried to take a breath and hoped he’d wake up in a cold sweat back at the Tower. “Since 2012—you recruited me.”

Fury pressed his lips together in a thin line, disbelief etched across his features.

Bruce looked helplessly at Etta, as though she was a friend in this unfamiliar sea, even if he was aware he met her not half an hour ago. He wondered where Maria Hill was—anyone he recognized, in fact—who could back him up. He scrubbed his hand over his forehead, raking his fingers through his hair.

“Look, sir, I don’t know what’s happening here. As I explained to Agent Dowry in the car, the last thing I remember is Lazarus’ bomb going off, and—”

Fury lifted his chin, his expression becoming hard and unreadable. “That incident was more than eighteen years ago.”

Bruce was pretty sure his heart stopped.

_“What?”_ he managed, the sound somewhere between a gasp and a word. Still, the Other Guy was quiet. _What the hell what the hell..._

“That bomb went off some eighteen years ago and that team was never heard from again,” Fury elaborated grimly. “The day the Avengers disappeared.”

There was a long moment of silence as Bruce tried to process those words. Finally, he said shakily, “I think I need to sit down.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/n: ~~Stealing~~ Borrowing from _Lost, Quantum Leap,_ and _Doctor Who_ for paradoxical, confusing time travel explanations and crap. Hopefully it at least makes some form of sense, except… you know, paradoxical confusing time travel explanations and crap.

* * *

**[ THOR ]**

_“I don't want to talk about time travel because if we start talking about it then we're going to be here  
all day talking about it, making diagrams with straws.” –Joe, Looper _

* * *

As Rose drove them away from Stonehenge, Thor told her what he remembered about the bomb.

“It is with utmost urgency that I contact Director Fury,” he said. “I must relay all that has occurred.”

“No problem,” Rose flashed him a smile. “We’ve got a secure line at Torchwood you can use and we’ll get you home lickety-split.” She pushed down the accelerator.

“So since this is apparently not _when_ I am supposed to be,” said Thor. “When am I?”

“2008,” she answered. “When did you come from?”

Thor clenched his jaw. “2013. I was going to finally visit Jane…”

The knowledge that he was not in the same Midgardian year as when he’d arrived that morning made him quite uncomfortable, though Rose assured him that she’d dealt with this sort of thing before.

“We came here to deal with some other problems—this year, I mean—but we were hoping to get some leads on the case of the Lost Superheroes, too.”

Thor glanced at her.

“Really, it’s not that big a deal,” she said casually. “Time travel, I mean.”

Thor rather thought it _was_ , thank you—it certainly seemed like a very big deal, defying physics and known logic. He fought to settle his nerves as unfamiliar landscapes flashed by.

Rose promised that they would speak to Fury and sort it all out, however, and he believed her. She had honest features and clever eyes, reminding him of Jane and the day she'd driven him to the crater where Mjolnir lay. He smiled a little at the memory.

The building where Rose’s Torchwood organization resided was plain and brick, compressed between rows of shops on either side. They entered the nondescript building through the back entrance and took the stairs two flights down to an unremarkable hallway. Rose removed a floor tile and pressed her hand to the blank metal panel beneath.

The entire wall before them slid open to reveal another hallway.

“C’mon, handsome, this way!” she said and gestured for him to follow.

“Mickey!” Rose trilled as she threw open the double doors leading to the main room of Torchwood. “You’ll never guess what I found!”

A young man with dark skin and very short hair popped up from behind a table strewn with unidentifiable pieces of machinery.

“Oh my God,” he exclaimed, dropping the wrench in his hand with a loud clatter. “Literally. Is that—?”

Rose smirked. “Yes.” To Thor, she said, “He was a bit obsessed with your case.”

“How in the bloody hell?” Mickey tore his wide-eyed gaze away from Thor to Rose. “And _everyone_ was obsessed with their case,” he added in a testy undertone. “How, though?”

“How indeed,” said Thor, glancing between them. “If I am now in 2008, then I have gone...somehow moved backwards in time. If the bomb hasn’t happened yet, how could you possibly know of it?”

“Ah, it’s quite simple,” said Rose with a cheery smile. “We started after you were gone, then jumped to this year, before it happened, hoping for some clues. And to deal with a few, little, um...disturbances along the way. How is that coming, by the way, Mickey?”

Thor took in the room while Rose chatted with Mickey, who nodded and kept staring.

The place was smaller than Thor had expected, based on S.H.I.E.L.D.’s facilities. A large central table covered with assorted debris—“Supplies,” Jane would insist, Thor was sure—dominated the space. Various pieces of furniture haphazardly surrounded it: a desk jammed in one corner, piled high with folders; a blue filing cabinet with bursting drawers; a long, old red couch that was fraying at the seams; a few wooden chairs, and a gray tool cabinet as tall as the ceiling.

“In there is the control room,” said Rose, appearing at his side. She gestured to the only other door aside from the one they’d entered through. “It’s not much, I know. We’ve been through some… _times_ and a few location changes were necessary. A few _time_ location changes too, come to think of it. We’re sort of between places right now, really. This is the latest spot, but so far it’s been our most secure.”

“Until today,” said Mickey.

“Until today,” Rose agreed with a sigh.

Despite Thor’s need to reach his companions immediately, he could not help inquiring, “What troubles have befallen you and Mickey?”

“Well, as I said in the car, Torchwood is a little like S.H.I.E.L.D. We deal with aliens and stuff,” said Rose. “We had one _minor_ disagreement with some Mekzatorians…”

“And now we’re basically hiding out,” Mickey chimed in.

Rose gave him a light slap on the shoulder. “We’re not hiding. We’re…considering our options.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Actually, we were hoping, when we detected your arrival, that you were a diplomatic envoy from Mekzatoria.” She looked Thor up and down. “Instead we found a missing demi-god soaked with Void Stuff, though, so it wasn’t a total loss.”

“You spoke earlier of my person being ‘covered’, and now here you do it again,” said Thor. “What do you mean, my lady?”

Mickey’s eyebrows shot up and he mouthed _my lady?_ at Rose, who just smiled.

Rose removed the odd glasses she had been wearing earlier from her pocket. “Void Stuff. These babies let me see it. Little trick I learned from a friend of mine.” She winked and pocketed the glasses again. “Any time something, or someone, takes a tumble through the fabric of reality like you did, you’re bound to pass through the Void. The Void is the pocket between universes—it’s nothing itself, literally _nothing_ , but it leaves _something_ behind. Residue.”

Thor nodded. They had a different name for it in Asgard, but the concept was the same. The blankness between realms, the distance between galaxies and stars, the space between Yggdrasil’s branches.

Mickey crossed the room to a computing device, flipped it open, and began typing rapidly. “I’ll add that to the file…”

Rose jabbed her thumb in Mickey’s direction. “See? Obsessed,” she said affectionately.

“Don’t even pretend over there, missy,” Mickey shot back. “There’s a reason why we came _back_ from 2013 to now. To suss out this mess before it happens, yeah? Among other things.”

Rose rolled her eyes but smiled. “All right, maybe I was a little interested too.”

“You’re already working to fix this?” asked Thor. “To get me home?”

“Well, we don’t fully know what _happened_ ,” said Rose. “Which is more so why we’re here—trying to trace events and such. But yeah, we’re hoping to help. So far all we’ve found is you.”

Mickey raised his eyebrow at Thor. “So the rest of Avengers...they’re not with you? You didn’t get thrown together?”

“I do not know of their present location, no.” Thor frowned. “You have not encountered them, either?”

Mickey and Rose shook their heads in unison.

The boy’s keyboard clacked as he typed. “No other readings cropped up to indicate another ‘visitor’ like you,” he reported glumly. “Sorry, mate. Wherever they are, it’s not here. Not yet, at least.”

“Is there any way to locate them?” asked Thor.

“Well, best guess based on what you described?” Rose said. “You’ve all been jumbled about in the universe’s timestream. Makes sense, with the way you all vanished in 2013.” She hesitated slightly before adding, “Unfortunately, that means they could anywhere. Any- _when_.”

Mickey hands flew across his keyboard. “Well, if they’re in the past, they’d leave a sign of it, yeah? Some sort of, you know, headline of Captain America in the 1700s type thing?”

Rose frowned. “Not necessarily. Time is not…a straight line. They may not yet be in a position to affect anything permanently.”

Mickey looked up from the computer. “Or they already have done and we don’t know it yet. I can try accessing alternate-timeline files, but that’ll be a while.”

Thor frowned again, thinking through the implications they presented. “If my companions find themselves in the past, would there not be a record of it?”

“Maybe— _if_ they’ve affected something—but maybe not, if they haven’t...yet,” Rose said cryptically.

“But surely, the past is in the past,” said Thor, his brow crinkling. He was too exhausted to untangle this.

Mickey winced. “Good luck with this.”

Rose exhaled, blowing tendrils of her hair away from her face. “Okay, it’s like this. Whatever happened in the past, already happened. It’s history, yeah? But it also _is_ happening, right now, because time isn’t linear and this is only _your_ present. Which means some parts also _haven’t_ happened yet—they’re your future, even though you’re physically in the past.”

Thor stared. If he wasn’t still off-kilter and foggy from being wrenched through time, he’d be tempted to believe Loki was playing a very elaborate prank.

“It’s bloody confusing, I know,” Mickey put in.

“Okay...” Rose pursed her lips. “Suppose one of your mates is thrown back to say, 1960. He’s in the past, yeah? From here, in 2008, 1960 has already happened. But 1960 already happened _without him in it,_ because he just got there, same as you just got here. For us, 1960 is still the past, though, so it also already happened _with_ him in it as well. For him, it _is_ happening, right now, while we’re standin’ here talking about it.”

Thor raked his hand through his hair and not for the first time that day, greatly wished Tony or Bruce were on hand to make better sense of this chaos. He shook his head in frustration.

“This makes no sense, my lady, I’m sorry.”

Rose sighed patiently. “Look, the bottom line is that time isn’t one way. It’s a big…swirling, chaotic, criss-crossing, timey-wimey mess. If your friend has been thrown backwards in time, then whatever he’s doing right _now_ , in the past, might be changing things. But, equally, might not be. Past, present, and future sort of…overlap in a way that…almost no one can really explain.”

“The world we are experiencing in this moment doesn’t change as a result of my friends’ actions in the past?” Thor wondered.

“Nothing has changed, because they haven’t _caused_ any change yet. For them, our past is their present. So some of it hasn’t happened yet.”

Thor lifted his chin. “My present is...now, and their present is...then.”

“Spot on,” Micky piped up. “Bloody mess, time is.”

“Here, how about this.” Rose bent over and removed one of her shoelaces. She held up the string, taut and straight. “This string is time, okay? Straight like this is how everyone thinks of it. That you can move forward or back, easy as lyin’, and it’s a flat line.” She moved the lace back and forth, keeping it taut and straight.

Thor nodded. That was more or less how he’d understood it, though Heimdall had always said time was much more complex than that. 

Rose crumpled up the string and held her palm out, revealing curled, tangled string. “This is more what time is really like. It’s all touching, overlapping, different dimensions—very much _not_ flat or straight.”

She started jiggling her arm so the bundle of string quivered and moved. “It’s always changing and moving. There are fixed points and nexus points and no points at all. Actually, this would probably be more accurate if you had a jar full of strings and threw the jar around and then broke it.” Rose laughed.

Thor grimaced. He was fairly sure he grasped the basics, but his head still hurt. 

“What I’m trying to say, is that everything _has_ happened, it _is_ happening, and _hasn’t happened yet_. All the time, at the same time, any time. It’s why time can be changed and why it can be rewritten. It’s why there are certain things that cannot be changed—even if _you_ did everything possible to change it, it will still always, _always_ happen.” 

“It’s why your mates being thrown about in time both affects and doesn’t affect the future or us, right here and now, because time has happened both _with_ and _without_ them,” Mickey added.

“Understand, yeah?” said Rose hopefully.

“More or less,” Thor replied, with a small smile. His strength was more in tactical and tangible things—battle plans and history, astrology and combat training. Abstract concepts were always more Loki’s expertise.

Even though this woman was very different from Jane, Rose’s knowledgeable rambling reminded him of her. A pang of sadness hit his chest; he missed Jane deeply and regretted going to the Tower first on this latest visit to Midgard. He could be with her now, in 2013, if he hadn’t stopped there to check on the well-being of his teammates first, he was sure of it.

“I fear the intricacies are lost on me at the moment.” Thor scrubbed his palm over his face.

Rose smiled and laughed. With a fond sigh, she said, “Yeah, this is why my friend usually just says _timey-wimey_ and leaves it at that.” She clasped Thor’s hand. “Bottom line: you’re here, now, and we’re gonna do everything in our power to get you back when you belong.”

Thor returned her grin. “ _That_ , my lady, I understand.”

“Right, let’s see about that director of yours.” Rose let go of Thor’s hand and crossed the room to the door leading to the control room. Mickey and Thor followed.

This room was different from the previous one, mostly because it was far less cluttered. In the center of the room was a hub of controls and screens and chairs. The walls were painted a pleasing neutral color, and were unadorned, save for the light sconces at regular intervals. Though electric, they reminded Thor of the torches in the halls of his home in Asgard.

“Just be a moment,” said Rose, settling down at one of the consoles. Mickey took a seat beside her.

Thor folded his arms over his chest, content to wait, knowing he was mere minutes away from speaking to Fury. He should have known, however, with his luck as of late, that there would be another bump in the road.

“Uh oh,” Mickey mumbled. “Rose…”

A number of alarms went off, dinging and blaring and bonging in cacophony of tones. The room itself shook—slow at first, then building in intensity. Thor glanced about, startled, and Rose flipped switches and slapped buttons. Mickey jumped out of his chair and closed the door to the control room, then slid a thicker, reinforced steel door into place in front of it.

“What is it?” Thor asked, worry bubbling up in his chest.

The shaking worsened, so much that Mickey had trouble staying on his feet as he scrambled back across the room to Rose. Some of the empty chairs jumbled and tipped over.

“Ah, just a little complication!” Rose answered shrilly. “Something _may_ have been lost in translation between us and—”

_Boom_.

“It’s the Mekzatorians!” Mickey shouted over the increasing din. “And they’re pissed! So much for that diplomatic envoy!”

Thor instinctively raised his arm to call for Mjolnir before he remembered his hammer was still missing, possibly left behind in a different time. With a growl of frustration, he glanced around as the lights flickered. A noise like thunder sounded and continued, growing in volume.

“They’re going to tear us apart!” yelled Rose.

“What may I do to assist you?” Thor called above the roar.

_Boom._

Rose and Mickey typed fast and furious, shouting directions to each other. Thor watched helplessly. Then, beyond their heads on the far wall, between two of the sconces, there was a crack. It wasn’t from the stress of the vibrating walls, however. It was strange and yet terribly familiar; growing quickly and horribly black.

The blood in Thor’s veins turned icy. Images jumped to his mind of innocents being swallowed by darkness, of comrades falling into a terrible abyss, of whole lands ceasing to exist. He’d seen this kind of dark magic before, more than four hundred years ago in Vanaheim. If he could disrupt its progress, however, even for a moment, he might be able to…

_Boom._

Without another moment’s hesitation, Thor barrelled across the room and slammed his right fist into the widening crack. He grit his teeth as his fist went _through_ the wall and into the void beyond, until the wall was up to his upper arm. Rose and Mickey looked up in surprise.

“ _Thor!”_ That wasn’t Rose’s or Mickey’s voice, but Thor didn’t have a second to question it.

“No!” Rose shouted.

Thor bellowed. The crack retracted itself fast and hard, slamming to a stop around Thor’s arm. The lights shut off.

The earthquake around them ceased. Thor exhaled in relief—thank the Allfather, he’d stopped it.

“Thor, you shouldn’t have…” said Rose, biting her lip with worry. A different set of lights came on; these were set along the edges of the floor and ceiling, and were harshly bluish-white instead of the warm orange of the sconces.

Thor gave a tug on his arm to extricate it from the wall. It didn’t move. The voice that had shouted his name, whoever it had been, was gone—perhaps it had come from the void somehow, though how had they known his name? It was a matter for another time, he decided.

“Oh my God,” Mickey murmured. He paced back and forth, mumbling under his breath.

Frowning, Thor pulled harder, and again, growling. His arm and the wall stayed stubbornly unmoving as if they’d both suddenly turned to stone (but a stone he could not shift? How was _that_ possible?). Curiously, he had no sensation in his arm, and that was worrying as well.

“What… _is_ …” Thor grumbled, leaning his full body weight in the opposite direction of his stuck limb.

Mickey ceased pacing to stare at Thor, his mouth agape, as Rose twined her hands before her.

“When they started attacking, our shields were disintegrating,” she explained. “We…we were putting a sort of…” She looked at Mickey helplessly, who gestured in an _how the hell should I know_ manner. “A sort of time freeze on the base, and…”

Thor halted his attempts to break free, the realization of Rose’s words dawning on him. “It took effect the moment I chose to disrupt the building chasm?” he ventured, anxiety spiking in his chest.

Rose nodded. “Everything inside the freeze-field can move about, but we’re essentially suspended in time. Which…means we stopped the Mekzatorians…”

“And we stopped _you_ ,” Mickey finally burst out. He turned to Rose, spluttering, “What the bloody hell do we do now? He’s the boy with _his finger in the_ _damn dam!”_


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

**[ BRUCE ]**

_“I'll just tell you what I remember because memory is as close as I've gotten to building my own time machine.”  
–Samantha Hunt, The Invention of Everything Else _

* * *

Once Bruce had more or less wrapped his head around the fact that he was eighteen years in the future, and that not one of his teammates was with him—nor had any of them made an appearance in the intervening years—the next step was to try and understand what exactly had happened.

Then to try to fix the situation. This, of course, was far easier said than done, since Bruce had no inkling of where to start.

“I can understand this is a lot to process,” said Fury, leaning back in his chair slightly.

Bruce chuckled bitterly. “All due respect sir, no, I don’t think you can.” At least Fury believed him.

Fury’s lips twisted into a half-smile. “No, I suppose I can’t.”

Bruce rested his elbows on the table and let out a deep breath, tamping down his rising stress. At least he was in this separate room, and not the center of attention in this place. The last thing he needed was to have an “incident” in the middle of this craziness. 

But while Bruce expected the Other Guy to stir and push around inside him, and he took slow breaths in anticipation of having to calm him down…there was no movement, no sensation of the Other Guy coming forward. Which was concerning, but frankly, welcome—he had enough to deal with at the moment. He brushed the notion aside and kept breathing while Fury waited patiently.

After several minutes, Bruce looked up at the Director. “What happened on your end? I mean, after…after we disappeared?”

Fury sighed. “That’s not exactly a short story.”

Bruce snorted and spread his hands. “I don’t exactly have anywhere else to be.” _Home,_ he thought. _I should be at home._ But if he was going to get there, he’d need to know the whole story.

 _I can’t put the pieces together unless I have all the variables._ Bruce almost smiled as he heard Tony’s voice in his head.

“My agents had set up a perimeter,” Fury told him. “We’d evacuated everyone in a one-mile radius and were working on clearing a five-mile radius, just in case whatever Lazarus had planned was...well. Not long after you and the rest of the team entered the house, we lost all contact—radio, visual…couldn’t even pick you up on infrared.”

Bruce nodded, unsurprised. Lazarus had managed to fool JARVIS and briefly contain all six of the Avengers, which given their remarkable collection of abilities, was no easy feat. No wonder S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn’t been able to interfere.

“Only a couple minutes later, there was a crazy noise—sort of a muted explosion. The sky flashed white and purple—thought we were _all_ dead.” Fury frowned. “I assumed Lazarus’ bomb had been detonated, and after the windows blew out from the shockwave, I sent our ground teams to back you up.” 

“It had,” murmured Bruce.

“The house had collapsed, though one room was still standing—heavily reinforced,” Fury continued. “Our biggest guns didn’t make a dent. The material wasn’t like anything we’d ever come across before, and it was shielded somehow—had to bring in a whole team of scientists to figure out how to break it. Once we finally cracked it open, we found a mess of melted metal, Thor’s hammer, Cap’s shield, and Lazarus.”

Bruce’s eyes widened. “Lazarus? Did he say…?”

“He was dead.”

Bruce touched his fingers to his forehead, processing Fury’s story. Why hadn’t the man been thrown in time with the team? How had he died? Where and _when_ was the rest of the team? Why would Lazarus have been left behind?

Fury sighed, guessing some of the questions racing through Bruce’s mind. “His autopsy said heart failure. We figured he’d just miscalculated and got himself caught in the crossfire of his own weapon.”

Bruce chewed his lip thoughtfully. “Before the bomb went off, Lazarus claimed he was from the future. He said he’d built a machine that opened a wormhole. That he’d come back to fix his mistake and stop us from winning.”

“Sounds like he wasn’t expecting to die.”

“I don’t think so,” Bruce agreed. “If he knew that the bomb was going to drop us through time, though, he must’ve taken preventative measures against getting tossed himself. Some sort of failsafe or anchor.”

Fury nodded. “And then not factored in that the shockwave from his own device would cause a heart attack—the man _was_ in his sixties. Whatever he did kept him anchored in the right time and place all right, but all that meant was that we had a body to find.”

Bruce scrubbed his hand over his face, another wave of anxiety cresting over him. Why wasn’t the Other Guy anxious too? Bruce pushed the thought away again— _one crisis at a time_. 

“What happened after that?”

The Director’s shoulders slumped. “After the Chitauri attack on New York, when the Avengers were first formed, it was supposed to have ushered in a new age where our world was protected from threats like that by a group of extraordinary heroes.” His expression became more weary and haunted than Bruce had ever seen him. “Instead, your disappearance brought on an unprecedented age of destruction.”

Bruce shivered at his dark tone.

“News of the Avengers’ complete disappearance spread instantly, as you can imagine,” Fury continued with a deep, scraping sigh. “As the months stretched by without a sign from any of you, the criminals and scumbags began crawling out of their holes to wreak havoc. They got bolder. More creative. We did our best, but we could only contain and neutralize so many of them. There was an instant power void, and every wacko and sick bastard out there was determined to fill it.”

Bruce could imagine all too easily. In the short time since their team had formed, they had gone on countless missions, often in different combinations. They’d foiled dozens of nefarious plots, stopped horrifying attacks, and beaten back impossible machines and monsters. There was always something, and it was sure to be a never-ending battle as long as they were alive and willing to fight. But without them…

“Most of California is uninhabitable now,” said Fury. His tone was horribly resigned and flat as he listed more casualties. “Staten Island is underwater, one hundred square miles of California state was destroyed in ‘19—that was after Kriske’s robot invasion of ‘18, and Chellis’ city-wide chemical arsons in ‘15. Chicago, San Diego, Paris, Dubai, Hong Kong, Houston—just to name a few that have taken some hefty hits over the years. And there was the _other world_ stuff too—Thor’s dad waged war with his realms and some Dark Elves for four years straight. Some of it spilled over down here.”

Bruce swallowed hard against the churning feeling in his gut as he listened.

“Of course, amongst all this, several years back, S.H.I.E.L.D. got on the bad side of a little group of super-villains intent on wiping us out,” Fury went on, hard and bitter. “Tried to kill me a few times—killed a lot of good people before enough of us remaining were able to find a chink in their armor and start dismantling them right back. That was a _very long_ year.” He reached down and slid his pant leg up slightly to reveal an artificial limb, then gestured to the deep scar on his face. “Souvenirs.”

The Director rose from his seat. “The Washington, San Francisco, and London bases were all wiped off the map during that time. New York’s a shell of what it once was. It’s only been in the last five years that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been up and running again, here in Boston.” He levelled his gaze at Bruce. “Things are still unstable out there, but I suppose it’s calmed down slightly in the past few years as the mutants have emerged.”

Bruce raised his eyebrow. “Mutants?”

“Super-powered people,” Fury explained. Bruce knew _of_ them, of course, he was simply surprised to hear of them in this context. “A lot of them have been working with us to curtail the destruction and super-villains. The rest…well, they’ve become super-villains themselves.” Fury’s sigh spoke volumes. It seemed to scrape up from the most tired, world-weary corner of the Director’s soul.

Bruce gave a slow nod, reeling and trying to absorb all the history that Fury had summarized. What startled Bruce the most—and maybe it shouldn’t have, but it did—was the extreme impact the disappearance of the Avengers had on the world. Would so much horror have happened if they’d been here? If he went home, could it be avoided?

“I’ll give you a minute,” said the Director, watching Bruce carefully. He hobbled out of the room, leaning on his cane for support, leaving Bruce to struggle to take in all that he’d been told.

Bruce raked his fingers through his hair. It was too much—already, it was too much, and he hadn’t even started reading files or researching or understanding or thinking about how to fix this. He wished he knew what to do—was Tony working on a solution, wherever he was? _When_ ever?

Bruce also really wanted a shower and clothes that fit, and to find his friends, or at least know _when_ they were, and what the hell was up with the Other Guy, and he maybe wanted something to eat because his stomach was rumbling pretty loudly and it was just _too goddamn much._

There was a soft knock on the room’s open door. Agent Etta Dowry appeared at his side with a set of fresh clothes, taking at least one thing off of his mind. “Thought you might want to get out of those grubby threads,” she said with a sympathetic smile.

“Thanks,” Bruce lifted his head and accepted the outfit gratefully. “You read my mind.”

Etta laughed. “I was thinking it was pretty clear those are not yours and not clean. So I went hunting and found something comfortable—let me know if I got the size right.”

She flashed him another smile and headed for the door, before turning back around to add, “Oh, and food is on the way.”

Bruce chuckled, then said, “Okay, now you’re _actually_ psychic.”

Etta winked. “I prefer ‘experienced.’”

“You have experience with people who show up in the wrong decade?” he teased.

“You’d be surprised.” 

Moments after Etta had left, Fury re-joined Bruce in the bland conference room. He took his previous seat near Bruce, who tried hard not to wince at how much effort it seemed to take for Fury to cross the room and sink into a chair.

“Well?” said the Director bluntly. “What’s the plan?”

Bruce snorted. “There isn’t one. I’m uh, not exactly experienced with time travel, so I don’t know where to start.”

Fury nodded. “Lucky for you, I know someone who is.”

“Really?”

“So do you,” Fury tilted his head back. “I took the liberty of calling Dr. Jane Foster.”

Bruce’s eyes widened in surprise. “She…knows about time travel?”

“Not time travel per se,” clarified Fury. “But her extensive research over the years deals with portals between worlds and a whole hell of a lot of theories about portals or connections between timelines _._ Figured if anyone might have a clue how to go about fixing your situation, it’d be her.”

“Sounds like she knows far more than me,” Bruce replied, running his fingers over his knuckles. “And I will take any help I can get.”

  
  


~

  
  


Bruce wished Tony were here. Not only because he would’ve been brimming with possible solutions to explore, but also because he and Bruce worked _well_ together, bouncing thoughts and problems off each other. He’d become so used to Tony being part of his working process that he found it hard to proceed without him.

And there’d be a lot of punchy one-liners, too, which would really lighten the mood right about now. Plus snacks.

Agents entered the conference room with box after box of archived files and plopped them on the table. When Bruce had asked for everything they had on Hector Lazarus, he hadn’t realized there’d be _quite_ so much. Or that it hadn’t all been fully digitized—a point which seemed like a sore one with just about everyone.

“Apparently we’re less hackable this way,” Agent Thomas grumbled. 

“Sure, but if the base is attacked and they make it to the archive room, then we lost everything anyways,” another agent said, thunking down yet another box. “We’d be better off to have this crap in the cloud like every other place on the planet.”

“That’s how we lost the London base,” Etta put in. “Remember Electrode?”

Thomas and the agent sighed and grumbled some more, but moved on to retrieve more files. 

By the time Bruce changed into fresh clothes, had some food in his belly, and was halfway through his first box of files on Lazarus, Jane Foster arrived at S.H.I.E.L.D. Apparently when Fury said he’d given her a call, what he’d actually meant was he’d had someone put her on a jet to rush her and a boatload of equipment over as soon as possible.

Though Bruce knew in his head that Jane would be eighteen years older than the last time he’d seen her, it was still a shock. Last month, he’d been visiting her lab with Tony, both of them interested in her work—frankly, the team had promised the big guy that they’d check in on her while he was gone, and Tony and Bruce were always up for talking science.

When Jane entered the meeting room, Bruce saw she was still as pretty as he remembered, with a wide, sweet smile and sparkling brown eyes, though her features were gently lined with age. She’d been in her early 30s when he’d last seen her, which would make her somewhere around 45 now.

“Wow,” said Jane, the moment she’d laid eyes on him. “ _Wow_ —I mean, the Director told me, and they explained on the way here, but…wow.” She shook her head and approached Bruce slowly like he might disappear before her eyes if she wasn’t careful.

Bruce stood. “Jane, it’s good to see you.”

“Hi, sorry, it’s just…” She tucked a piece of her long brown hair behind her ear. It was longer than he’d last seen it, maybe more layered, but much the same, with the barest hint of gray threading here and there. “You haven’t changed. At _all_.”

Bruce smiled wryly. “Well, that’s because the bomb went off this morning for me. At least, I think it was this morning. Maybe yesterday.”

“Right, yes, of course,” Jane nodded. She bustled around the table, tossing her coat and purse and onto a chair. She tucked her hair into a ponytail and immediately reached for one of the boxes. “The displacement was physical as well as temporal, which would certainly do a number on your brain. How are you feeling? What do you have so far? What can I help with? What did the bomb look like before it went off?”

He almost laughed at her enthusiasm—she hadn’t really changed either. She’d barely wasted thirty seconds marvelling over him and then it was down to business.

“Right, well, now, I’m going through everything Lazarus has done that S.H.I.E.L.D. has on record,” explained Bruce, touching his fingers to his elbows. “I’m hoping to find any mention of the device he built that sent me here, and maybe, uh, reverse engineer it. Somehow. Or something.”

“I see,” said Jane, flashing him a smile. “You have a very technical, specific plan in place.”

“Oh, absolutely. Highly technical and extremely specific.” Bruce countered with a matching amused grin. “This is, uh, definitely _not_ the first time I’ve accidentally been tossed through time on the whim of an evil genius.” Jane laughed, and together they got to work.

It wasn’t long before Jane had four notebooks open and scattered around the table, a pen behind each ear while she jotted notes with another. Bruce read file after file on Lazarus’ early work at a lab in Chicago, various articles about his recent developments prior to his death, and an impressive number of S.H.I.E.L.D. missions involving the man. Very little seemed helpful to his cause so far, though he made notes all the same.

The longer Bruce worked with Jane, the more curious he was about what her life had been like the past eighteen years. She wore no wedding ring, and despite their occasional small talk, she made no mention of a boyfriend or significant other. She also hadn’t mentioned Darcy Lewis or Erik Selvig even once, both of whom he knew Jane had been working closely with when he’d last seen her.

And then there was that long, wide burn scar on her hand and forearm, disappearing up past her three-quarter-sleeve. She definitely had not had that before. His eyes kept darting to it without conscious thought and he tore his eyes away every time, hoping she hadn’t noticed.

More than a few times, Bruce looked up to ask her one of many questions about her life, but then glanced back down without saying a word. She was engrossed in what she was doing and he was reluctant to take her off track. More than that, he realized he didn’t know her that well to begin with. Was it even his place to ask her personal questions?

At one point, Etta came by to check on their progress (which was hardly any) and brought them Chinese food.

“How goes the battle?” she asked.

Bruce rolled his shoulders. “I’ve found the odd mention in here of an ‘extraordinary device’ that Lazarus claims to have been working on, but nothing about what it is or if he even finished it. Might be something…might be nothing. That’s all I have to go on so far.” 

He looked at the boxes piled up around the room. 

“Then again, we’ve barely scratched the surface.” 

“Not much better from me either, I’m afraid,” said Jane with a heavy sigh. “I have a lot of ideas for figuring out _how_ this might have happened, but nothing concrete. Just…theories.”

Bruce reached for the package of dumplings as his stomach gave a noisy growl. He hadn’t realized he was hungry until Etta arrived, though the clock on the wall showed it was late evening.

“It may not be a fast process,” said Etta. “But I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Dr. Foster is a legend, so if anyone can figure it out, it’s her.”

Jane flushed and ducked her head at the praise. “Well, I don’t know about that…” She poked at the box of noodles before her with her chopsticks.

Etta raised her eyebrow. “She’s won a Kavli Prize for astrophysics.”

Bruce whistled low and Jane’s blush deepened.

“I’m going to have to side with Agent Dowry here,” said Bruce, peering at Jane with genuine awe. “That’s pretty amazing.”

Jane waved her hand at them, shooing Etta away. She and Bruce laughed before the agent exited the room. Bruce couldn’t help his curiosity now and he had to ask what Jane had done to earn the award. Though visibly uncomfortable, she didn’t take much persuading to get her rambling about her work.

As Bruce listened, the knot of tension that had been in his gut since he’d woken in that crater eased. Jane’s familiar demeanor in a sea of beyond-crazy was like an anchor, and he found himself holding on for dear life.

After their dinner break, the pair dove straight back into the files. Sometime later, Bruce was starting to feel pretty bleary, and a headache threatened to force him to stop for the night. He glanced up at Jane, who didn’t look like she was faring much better with her hands pressed to her temples, her palms stretching the skin around her eyes.

“If we could just… _contact_ them somehow,” she mumbled to herself.

“What was that?” Bruce asked, setting down his pen, glad for the distraction from the endless files in front of him.

Before Jane repeated herself, Etta poked her head in to check on them again. “You two going to work all night? It’s almost 1 a.m.”

Jane blinked and rubbed her eyes with a groan, and Etta smiled at her sympathetically.

“Are _you_ here working all night, too?” said Bruce, nodding to Etta.

“Yep—drew the short straw. My turn for the night shift.” She looked at the mess of papers everywhere. “Is there anything I can help you guys with? I don’t have a science degree or anything, but…you look like you could use some assistance.”

Jane leaned back in her chair, pulling her hair out of its ponytail to shake it out. “Not unless you can devise a way for us to talk directly to the rest of the missing Avengers scattered in time so we can determine where and _when_ they are so we can actually have a starting point in trying to figure out how to get them back,” she rattled off in one exasperated breath.

Bruce grimaced. That was assuming the rest of his teammates were even still alive somewhere. He hadn’t wanted to say it, but the possibility that they’d all simply been vaporized in the bomb while the Hulk had saved Bruce had crossed his mind. The bomb had been for displacement, sure, but Lazarus _had_ been completely bananas. He could’ve easily made a mistake—or even designed it to do such damage.

And there was still the matter of why the Hulk was so disturbingly _quiet_...

“Actually,” said Etta thoughtfully, breaking Bruce out of his train of thought. “We might.”

Jane perked up, eyes widening with hope and excitement. “Really? I was actually kind of kidding.”

“You seriously have a way to…” Bruce waved his hand around. “Reach through time to talk to my friends? Assuming they’re only temporally misplaced on Earth, like me?”

“Possibly. Let’s just say over the years, S.H.I.E.L.D. has procured a fair amount of _weird shit_ ,” Etta said with a smirk. “We have artifacts and alien tech and one-of-a-kind super-villain inventions locked away in our vaults. It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that something could be of use to you.” Her smile grew a little wider. “And, I can think of a few very specific items that I’ve personally catalogued that are promising.”

Hope spiked in Bruce’s chest.

Etta left to speak with Fury, collect Agent Thomas, and investigate the archives. Bruce and Jane lacked the clearance to view most of the files or the actual vault, so despite the situation, they remained in the conference room, awaiting the agents’ return.

Bruce couldn’t read another word at that point, so instead he began making careful conversation with Jane. He was still curious about what she’d been through the past several years, but hardly wanted to pry, especially if the memories were painful. Instead, he told her what he remembered about the bomb. She took notes in case his experience would later be helpful to their cause.

“What about Thor?” she asked, and her voice was surprisingly clinical as opposed to hurt or full of longing like he would’ve expected. “He was there too?”

“Yeah, he, uh, he tried to blast through the roof, but Lazarus had the thing reinforced somehow, so it knocked Thor right back down,” Bruce explained. “There had to have been some magic involved—there’s nothing I’ve seen that his hammer can’t break through.”

Jane nodded, a small smile playing at her lips this time. “Me neither.” She paused, and when she continued, her tone was soft and almost shy. “I fell for him hard, you know. Darcy used to tease me about it—that I barely knew him and yet was so… _madly_ in love.” She laughed a little, but it was a sad and small noise. “I guess that’s just me, though: full speed ahead.” She sighed. “He never fell for me the same way, though. That was hard to come to terms with.”

“Sure he did,” Bruce said in a rush. He’d seen firsthand how deeply Thor cared for Jane, not only in how he talked about her but also in his face when he did. “He was just as in love with you—you, um, almost couldn’t have a conversation with the guy without him gushing about you in one way or another.”

“That’s sweet of you to say, Bruce.” She smiled that sad smile again. “I thought he did once, too. He left, and promised he would come back for me, but he never did. I mean, he came to New York when it was attacked all those years ago—who knows how many other times in between. He never came for _me_ , though. And it’s fine—I’m fine, I’m over it. It’s just…it hurt, you know? Really broke my heart, being left behind like that.”

Bruce shook his head. “No, Jane…he didn’t hang around instead of seeing you—he wasn’t hopping back and forth and ignoring you. The New York attack was caused by his brother, Loki, and he came here to deal with him. He had to take his brother back to Asgard after that to face his family and their justice. Believe me, he hated that he couldn’t get away to see you.”

Jane didn’t seem convinced, but he could see the flicker of doubt in her eyes. Bruce’s stomach twisted, knowing she’d gone on all these years thinking Thor didn’t really love her, and how terribly wrong that was.

“We weren’t in touch with him, uh, all the time, but there were wars going on in the other realms out there, and I guess he was stuck fighting them,” Bruce continued earnestly, wishing there was a better way to reassure her. “He got us messages when he could. Checked in when he could and made us promise to look out for you. He loved you. I know he did. The morning the bomb went off, actually, he was down on Earth for the first time in months, and he was supposed to be going to see you when we got called out to stop Lazarus.”

Silence stretched as Jane held his gaze, almost hopeful. But then she couldn’t seem to believe it and instead turned away with a sigh.

“Well, it doesn’t matter now,” she said. “It doesn’t matter how he felt. He’s long gone and I’m…it’s all in the past, anyways.” She crossed her arms over her chest, like she was shielding herself from the memories and the things Bruce had said.

Bruce traced his fingers over the knuckles on his other hand. He wished he knew her better, but he could take an educated guess at what she was thinking: despite what she said, she _wasn’t_ over the loss of Thor, and his words had dredged up that pain rather than soothe it as he’d intended.

“I’m sorry,” he offered guiltily. “I didn’t mean to…I just thought…”

Jane didn’t answer him, but instead offered that terrible sad smile once again. “Don’t worry about it.”

Etta poked her head into the room. “Hey, look, we’re probably going to be a while with the archives, so why don’t you guys get some sleep? We’ve set aside a couple rooms in the barracks for you.”

Bruce stood with a stretch—sleep sounded very good—and gave his tired eyes a rub. He and Jane followed Etta out of the conference room, and she led them through a short maze of hallways to the barracks area. Some of the rooms held several beds, some just one or two, and most of the rooms were open and empty. They were all the same, in plain grey shades, and smelled faintly like cleaner.

Etta stopped in front of a pair of bedrooms, and gestured to either side. “Here you are. We stocked them with the basics for you both: some fresh clothes, blankets, and the like. Grab an agent to help you if you need anything and have them call me. These are kind of designed for temporary stopovers, so I apologize that they’re not exactly pretty or super comfortable…”

“Oh no, it’s totally fine,” said Jane, waving away Etta’s concerns.

Bruce nodded. “Thanks, Etta. I wasn’t expecting this, and I really appreciate it.”

“Goodnight, Doctors,” Etta nodded at them each in turn and headed back down the hall.

Bruce and Jane bid each other goodnight as well and Bruce gratefully shut the door to his room. He wasn’t sure how much he’d really be able to sleep given everything that had happened, but he was certainly looking forward to trying as he flopped onto the bed in an exhausted heap.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't yet, go check out the fabulous fanmix for this fic, made by the lovely Ragna, [HERE](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26222632). And fun fact: the very last track contains all the titles of this series and is wholly tied to the entire epic. <3

* * *

**[ THOR ]**

_“What if tomorrow vanished in the storm? What if time stood still? And yesterday—if once we lost our way, blundered in the storm_ — _would we find yesterday again ahead of us, where we had thought tomorrow’s sun would rise?” – Robert Nathan, Portrait of Jennie_

* * *

Thor touched his fingers—the ones not encased in the wall—to his forehead. _What a mess._

“Well, we’re just going to have to lift the freeze,” said Rose.

Mickey shook his head vigorously. “We do that, and they’ll bring this place down on us.”

“Well, we have to lift it eventually!”

“Once we have a _plan_ for getting out of this mess, yeah!”

“Fine.” Rose exhaled in a rush of air. “We can’t just stand here and do nothin’ either.” She glanced at Thor who offered her a patient and apologetic smile.

He was not sorry he had stalled the attack, only that he had managed to put himself in the wrong place at exactly the wrong moment. Knowing that time outside the bunker was frozen, he was in less of a hurry to extricate himself—not until they had worked out a way to keep themselves safe from destruction.

“S’pose there isn’t a way we can...sorta...cut ‘im out?” Mickey suggested, his tone etched with doubt.

Rose shook her head.

“Or pull?”

Thor gave his arm another tug but it was no use. He was stuck fast.

Mickey frowned and Rose sighed again.

Thor looked to his right arm with a deep frown of his own and his heart skipped a beat. Where his limb met the wall, black veins had sprung up on his skin. He didn’t feel pain—in fact, he didn’t feel anything at all in his arm. There was no chance that boded well. Worse still, the darkening veins seeped slowly towards his shoulder.

He swallowed hard and returned his attention to Rose and Mickey.

Rose must have noticed his brief shock, however, as she broke off her gentle arguing with Mickey. “What is it?”

“Nothing of concern,” Thor said, hoping to dissuade her interest. It _was_ a concern, but not yet dire. He had _seen_ dire with his own eyes and there was no need for alarm just yet.

Rose hurried over anyways and gasped when she spotted the thick, crawling black lines. Mickey was at her side in an instant.

“Oh my God,” he blurted. “What the— _what_ is _that?”_

“I’ve never seen this before,” said Rose with a worried shake of her head.

“I have,” said Thor darkly.

He could picture the scene clearly: The battle had raged for days, and then the Ulgoriths, wielding powerful dark magic, had created a fissure in the ground to rip Vanaheim apart. Hundreds were swallowed by the massive, sucking black hole. Thor wished he’d never experienced such horror—the screams that echoed deep into the void were too terrible to forget.

Eventually—and Thor wished he knew how to this day—Odin and Frigga struck a deal with the King and Queen of the Ulgoriths, and peace was achieved. They and their magic departed, and Thor had not encountered them in the centuries since.

Even among the survivors of the horrific battle, however, there had been dozens who’d remained touched by the ghastly magic. Their bodies had been lined with swirling black veins and they spoke of numbness and horrible visions.

Volstagg had been lucky: Odin was able to reverse the curse and stop it from overtaking him. Many others had not been so fortunate; they were too far gone. In a matter of days, the blackness overtook them, turning their bodies to icy, dark stone before they melted out of existence. Back to the abhorrent Void, it was said.

“What happens?” Rose prompted, drawing Thor from his memories.

“Something quite terrible, I’m afraid,” he answered with a wince. “But we shall remedy the situation before it is irreversible, I have no doubt.” 

_Though without the Allfather’s magic..._

“How?” said Mickey.

“I…am...working on that,” Thor replied with a wry grimace.

Perhaps if Thor hadn’t reacted rashly, the situation would be less difficult. They would have ample time to discuss the problem at hand and how best to solve it. As it was, Thor had a sneaking suspicion that these Mekzatorians were likely employing the same magic as the ancient Ulgoriths.

“Tell me more about your aliens,” said Thor.

“Tall, wide, ugly.” Mickey shrugged. “Bent on Earth-domination. The usual.”

Rose rolled her eyes at him. To Thor, she described the beings more thoroughly, complete with hand gestures. “Big—bigger than you. Wide shoulders, _huge_ arms—thick, muscular. Most of the ones I’ve seen’ve got small waists and small heads. Metal plating all over their chests—armor, I s’pose? Shiny black and gray eyes, weird noses.”

“Like a duck gone really, really wrong,” Mickey chimed in.

Thor nodded. Certainly sounded similar to an Ulgorith.

“I don’t understand what they were trying to do.” Rose shoved her fingers through her hair. She paced back and forth before Thor. He snuck a look at his arm; the black tendrils were sneaking ever closer to his shoulder.

“They were tryin’ to suck us up, that’s what,” Mickey growled. “Came down to Earth to destroy it before, didn’t they? They’re just finishin’ the job.”

“But why _now?_ Why, when we had peace on the table?” Rose crossed her arms over her chest.

“They’re bloody nuts?”

Rose sighed and dropped her arms to her sides.

“I apologize, my lady,” said Thor, his tone grave. “As I said, I have seen this brand of dark magic before—I have witnessed it devour entire lands. I intended to stop it, not cause you more grief.”

Rose shot him a grateful smile. “And you did stop it—I mean, I think you would have done, if I hadn’t…” she gestured vaguely around them and sighed again. “I just don’t know what to do _now_.”

Mickey nodded. “Unstick the freeze to unstick him, and in come the Meks.”

Rose settled heavily into a chair. “I thought it was going _so_ good. We’d talked them into sending an ambassador and everything.”

“Maybe they were lyin’,” Mickey suggested with a shrug. “Sent us death and destruction instead.”

“Did you have much correspondence with these creatures?” Thor interjected.

“About a week’s worth,” said Rose. “They showed up wanting to turn the Earth inside out for resources, but we talked ‘em out of it.”

“Thought we did, anyway,” Mickey grumbled. “Easily offended bunch, them.”

Thor pressed his lips together.

It was hardly out of the realm of possibility for a band of creatures to turn aggressive all of a sudden, but Thor had a hunch there was a very specific reason for it in this case. Based on Rose and Mickey’s descriptions earlier, as well as the attempt to swallow London in an abyss, he was growing more certain by the second that the Mekzatorians and Ulgoriths were closely related, if not the same creatures.

“Might I see the last of these communications?” Thor asked.

Mickey snatched up his computing device and brought it over to Thor. He clicked a few keys then held it aloft so Thor could view it.

Thor scanned the missives then glanced up at Rose. “These are the originals?”

“Those are the English translations, yeah,” she replied. “Theirs to English, and ours before we translated it and sent it off.”

Thor nodded his chin at Mickey. “May I see the translated versions of messages before the attack?”

Mickey obliged with a few clicks and keystrokes before holding the laptop up again. Thor read carefully. Thanks to the Allspeak, he could read any language without requiring translation, and the Mekzatorian’s gibberish was no exception. He didn’t note anything too out of place for most of the communications. There were several misspelled words, and though there were a number of obviously mistranslated words, they were close enough in meaning to not be too misconstrued ( _grand day_ instead of _good day_ , _associate_ instead of _friend,_ and _we savvy your stature_ instead of _we understand your position_ ).

It wasn’t until the final message, dated that morning before the attack, that Thor discovered exactly why the Mekzatorians were attempting to destroy London. He couldn’t help the rumble of laughter that shook his chest.

“What?” Rose got to her feet and stood by Mickey. She darted her eyes to the computer. “Did we make a mistake?”

“Plenty, to be honest, but none too offensive,” said Thor. “Until the end.” He pointed. “This line here. According to your English version, you intended to state that you would be delighted to meet their diplomatic envoy.”

Rose winced. “That’s not what it really says?”

Thor chuckled. “It declares you would be delighted to _eat_ their _barbaric_ envoy.”

Mickey groaned and shut the laptop. Rose buried her face in her hands but she couldn’t help laughing a little, giggling through her fingertips.

“No wonder they’re right pissed!” said Mickey.

Rose’s laughter trailed off and she raised her head to look at Thor. “What do we do now?”

“If your Mekzatorians are indeed like the Ulgoriths I have faced in the past, and I believe they are…” Thor gave his head a shake. “They are extremely honor-bound. A slight against their character such as this is tantamount to one of the highest crimes. This is why they have reacted so extremely against you.”

Mickey moaned again.

“They will accept nothing less than a formal apology—”

“We can do that!” Rose piped up.

“And a champion to complete a grueling Honor Battle,” Thor finished. “At the very least.”

“Oh.”

Mickey grimaced. “Don’t suppose you’re up for a little battle with some aliens?”

Thor raised his eyebrow. “I am currently held fast in your wall.”

Rose chewed her lip. “If we break the time freeze, we _could_ get you out.”

“If you destroy your defenses, my lady, the Void may continue to grow. I hoped to cease its progress, but I may well have failed. You cannot be certain.”

That’d been Loki’s discovery during the war with the Ulgoriths, before Odin’s peace talks. Loki discerned that disrupting the opening of the dark fissure could sometimes cause it to splinter and retract. Of course, they also learned through trial and error only worked _sometimes_.

“But if we _don’t_ restart time,” Rose told him. “Then you’ll be stuck there forever. We’ll all be stuck here forever.”

“And we don’t got nearly ‘nough supplies for that,” Mickey put in.

“ _And_ , besides that...” Rose crossed her arms over her chest again. “I believe you did stop the thing. It snapped shut around you before I finished the freeze, yeah?” She flashed him a smile.

Mickey exhaled loudly. “Right then. What’s the play? We drop the freeze and…”

“Thor,” said Rose, taking the laptop from her friend and cracking it open. “Can you send them a properly worded message?”

“Indeed. What might you wish it to say?”

“Our formal apology for insulting them. Ask them to cease opening the Void. And,” she took a breath and hesitated. “That we wish to hear the terms for a Battle of Honor.”

Thor typed out the message one handed. Rose set the laptop down and did whatever it was she had done before to implement the time-freeze on the base. 

“Ready?” she asked, fingers hovering over the keyboard. She looked from Mickey to Thor.

Mickey braced himself against the desk and nodded. Thor placed his palm against the wall, ready to yank himself free the moment the wall gave away. 

“Do it,” said Mickey.

Rose inhaled, and her fingers became a blur over the keyboard. For a breathless moment, nothing happened. She glanced up, Mickey held onto the desk tighter in anticipation. And then, the incredible din and shaking resumed. 

Mickey yelped and cursed. The lights flickered, and dust little chunks of ceiling rained down from the splinters criss-crossing over their heads. Rose clutched the laptop and wobbled on her feet. Thor could feel the wall shifting and pinching around his arm—the black veins had reached his shoulder and he lost sight of how close they were to his neck—but he couldn’t get himself free.

Thor growled and pulled, using all his strength.

“Hold on!” Rose shouted above the quaking. 

Fuses burst, sending sparks showering across the floor. Mickey dove for cover as one of the work benches toppled, sending tools and materials flying. 

The wall squeezed at Thor’s arm like a vice. The blackened skin didn’t break, and Thor couldn’t feel the bones beneath, but surely they must be splintering under the pressure…

Then it stopped. The room fell still. 

Thor was still trapped.

Mickey cautiously poked his head out from under the desk. “Is that it? Are we dead?”

“Not yet.” Rose pushed her hair out of her eyes. 

“Did you freeze it again?”

“No…” Rose peered at the laptop. “I think they got the message.”

“Well, that’s good, right?” Mickey dusted off his pants. “What does it say?”

“I think...I think they—”

An icy sensation raced over Thor’s arm—the one cemented into the wall. He registered surprise that feeling had returned to the damaged limb at all, and then the wall split open, as easily as an egg and as thunderous as a fault line. Something grasped at him, pulled—Thor sucked in a shocked breath.

He tumbled into The Void beyond. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/n: So originally, Thor was indeed going to fight an alien battle. But, this is what happens when you take 57 years to write a fic, ladies and gentlemen. Alien battle idea in 2013 is now old news because _Ragnarok_. But…I came up with something else instead… *cryptic smile*


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, huge thanks to Cariadne ([Tenebrielle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tenebrielle/works)) and her valuable help with Bruce (girl, I only wish I could've done more!! <3). If you're a Bruce fan, you _gotta_ check out her works, especially "[Entangled States](https://archiveofourown.org/works/660473)". Trust me - you'll love it.

* * *

**[ BRUCE ]**

_“It’s a very complicated thing, time, Jo. Once you’ve begun tampering with it, the oddest things start happening.” – The Doctor_

* * *

Bruce visited the medical center first thing in the morning. He needed to run some tests to see if he could figure out what the hell was going on with the Other Guy and maybe figure out why he still couldn’t properly feel him—just a strange numbness, irrational hope that Hulk was gone, and ever-present guilt for having any hope in the first place.

The S.H.I.E.L.D. doctors called up scans of Bruce’s brain from their medical archives—Fury insisted on physicals for all the human Avengers periodically, though actually _getting_ any of them into an MRI was always an adventure. Bruce was pretty sure he and Steve were the only two who eventually managed to show up more or less when asked, and Tony had sent one from home after Pepper, Fury, Rhodey, Happy, _and_ Maria insisted. Threatened, really. He wasn’t sure if Clint or Nat had actually ever conceded. 

When his new scans and tests had been run, Bruce joined Dr. Marina Hess at a sleek holographic table to look over the results. She flicked through them and worried lines deepened on her face.

“I’m not sure what to make of these…” she mumbled. She checked his MRI results, past and present, and swiped them up off the table to enlarge the projection alongside the results of several other tests. 

Bruce swallowed. His past MRI looked unusual for anyone else, with too much activity and coloration—he and the Hulk, sharing the same body but two separate minds. His new scans from today were disturbingly flat—almost normal, even—in comparison. 

“Can you still feel him?” Dr. Hess asked. 

Bruce took a slow breath. He _could,_ technically _,_ but…

“I don’t really know how it works with you and, um, the Hulk.” She waved her hand up and down his body. “Only what I’ve read of your past notes on the subject.”

“I don’t know that I can really describe it either,” said Bruce. “Normally, it’s like...he’s just there. A presence. And when I get too stressed or angry, or I’m in danger, he...he comes out, takes over. But now, it’s almost as if...I can feel the space he’s supposed to be...and he _is_ in there, but he’s…something’s wrong. He’s...quiet. It’s...numb?” 

He had no idea how to put it into words. He didn’t know how to explain it to himself, even, let alone someone else.

“Well, for lack of a better term, it looks like he’s in a coma,” said Dr. Hess.

“I don’t think that’s possible.” Bruce shook his head and swiped through the test results, comparing them to his old ones. His heart thumped harder. It shouldn’t be possible—it couldn’t be. But what if it was? What then? _How_ was it possible? How could he fix it?

Did he _want_ to fix it?

“That’s what it looks like.” Dr. Hess frowned. “It’s not like we have any sort of precedent for...your situation. Any of it. And nobody knows what being shot through space-time by some trans-dimensional bomb can do to a person, let alone a...person such as yourself.”

“Right...” Bruce stared at the readouts and tucked his fingers under his arms to stop their trembling. He didn’t know what this meant and couldn’t decipher the emotions pulsing through him. It both was terrifying and relieving—what if the Hulk didn’t wake up when Bruce was in danger? What if he _never_ woke up?

“I’ll keep looking at these—see if we can work out something to...help, somehow,” Dr. Hess offered. “Or at least get you some answers.”

_I need_ Tony’s _help_ , Bruce thought, heading out of the medical center. His heart still pounded in his chest. _Hulk, man, what_ happened _in there?_

Of course, there was no answer.

  
  


~

  
  


“A magic mirror,” Bruce said flatly. “You’ve gotta be joking.”

Etta didn’t look like she was joking, but as Bruce looked from her to the antique looking mirror sitting on the conference room table, he was sure she had to be. Or else he was still back in the plain S.H.I.E.L.D. appointed room he’d spent the night in, still asleep and dreaming. If he was, that’d certainly make the Hulk situation easier to deal with, at least. 

He crossed his arms over his chest and took a few steps closer to the table.

Jane was just as skeptical as she moved in close to peer at the mirror as well. “Seriously?”

“We recovered it from a building collapse about two decades ago,” explained Etta. “Supposedly it came from a genuine band of aliens.”

Bruce tilted his head. “Aliens?”

Etta’s lips quirked up. “Says the man who has _personally fought_ aliens from a wormhole in outer space.” She had a point.

“Magic, though?” Jane questioned.

Etta was evidently too professional to mention Jane’s love life, but the raise of her eyebrow and amused twitch of her lips spoke volumes.

“Okay, fair enough,” admitted Jane.

“We researched the heck out of it and ran dozens of tests on it when we first got a hold of it,” Etta continued. “Couldn’t find anything dangerous, but we couldn’t get it to work, either. Supposedly, you can communicate with people across the globe. We locked it up temporarily, planning to do further testing, but evidently no one ever got back to it.”

“‘Across the globe’ doesn’t really help us, though,” said Bruce, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Not unless it can, uh, transcend space _and_ time.”

Etta shrugged. “We don’t know—it might be able to do that. Figured it was worth a shot. The other leads Thomas and I checked out in the vaults last night were duds and dead ends.” She added sardonically, “Or, at least, this is the least potentially dangerous.”

The three settled in for a long morning of research. Etta brought up all the case files pertaining to the mirror in case there was something she’d missed that would be helpful. Jane typed and typed, reading page after page of information. Bruce looked for anything relating to magic mirrors, which mostly brought up a ton of fairy tale lore. He read it all, though he doubted any of it would be useful.

Agent Thomas brought them a plate of sandwiches and copious coffee supplies around lunchtime, and the trio gratefully took a break to eat and swap knowledge before diving back into it. Finally around mid-afternoon, Jane had an epiphany.

“I knew the building collapse sounded familiar! The media largely reported the destruction as structural failure,” said Jane. “Luckily it fell down on a holiday weekend, so the shops nearby weren’t open or occupied. It barely made a blip in the local news.”

“What was the building for? Was anyone inside it?” Bruce reached for a sip of his water.

“Officially? Nothing. It was up for sale, between owners.”

“Unofficially?”

“We have sister organizations across the globe,” Etta piped up. “Why else do you think S.H.I.E.L.D. was called in for clean-up?”

_“Unofficially,”_ Jane continued, glancing from Etta to Bruce. “Two people were inside at the time, but no bodies were ever found. But S.H.I.E.L.D. _did_ find this,” she tapped the mirror’s frame with her fingernails. “Along with some other weird stuff.”

Etta nodded and Bruce scrunched his brows thoughtfully.

“And I found a little bit of info on the mirror—or something like it, anyways,” Jane added, nodding at her computer.

Bruce returned his attention to the artifact on the table. “So...do we need some sort of a spell or something to, uh, ‘activate’ it?” he asked, scratching his head. “Alien handprint, maybe?”

“Unclear,” said Jane. “It kind of implies you’re supposed to be a witch or at least have magical powers of some description to be able to properly use the mirror. If it’s the same deal as the one we have here.”

Etta sighed. “I don’t suppose either of you are Hogwarts graduates?”

“I don’t think so,” Bruce chuckled. “You?”

“I have a couple ex-boyfriends who would probably tell you differently, but no, I’m not a witch.”

Bruce sighed. Another roadblock. Jane bit her lip and scrunched her forehead. Bruce idly stared back at his laptop, where he had dozens of pages related to fictional magic mirrors open. If only it were as easy as it was in fairy tales…

He sat up straight in his chair. What if it _was_ that easy?

“What?” asked Etta, watching Bruce hopefully.

“When S.H.I.E.L.D. tested the mirror and tried to get it to work, what did they do?”

Etta frowned thoughtfully and flipped through a file folder. “According to the case files, they tried telling it to show them things, they tried shaking it around, various word combinations that could be passcode. Um…here, it says they tried using it at different times of day, different combinations of words at different times of day, the old ‘mirror, mirror, on the wall’ schtick…” She flicked through the notes before her, eyes darting across the pages. “Electricity, electromagnetism, heat, cold, pressure…The list goes on.”

Bruce glanced at his laptop again, at the picture of _Beauty and the Beast_ he had open. “Did they ever just _ask_ it? Nicely?”

Jane looked up from her laptop and Etta stared at him dubiously, trying not to laugh.

“Ask it nicely? Like a _Disney_ movie?”

“Well, did they?” Bruce pressed, and Etta scrunched her brow as she went back to scanning the notes.

“Uh...I’m sure they did, hold on...” Etta mumbled. 

He reached across the table and grasped the mirror, pulling it close. It was heavy, with a large gilded frame that was once probably a stunning gold but was now a tarnished, dusty brown color. It was a little bigger in size than a sheet of loose-leaf paper, and the reflective surface was flecked with black chips and faint scratches. He wrapped his hands on either side and held the mirror almost upright so he could see his own reflection.

He cleared his throat, feeling suddenly awkward and more than a little idiotic; he didn’t know how to begin. “Um, mirror…? Can you please, uh, show me…Clint Barton?”

He waited with bated breath and so did the two women. For several seconds, though, nothing happened. Bruce’s shoulders slumped. He was about to set the mirror down and go back to the drawing board when he caught a glimpse of Clint. Bruce swore in surprise and almost dropped the thing on the table, one hand letting go completely. 

_It worked!_ But the instant his hand wasn’t in contact with the mirror, the image sputtered and disappeared.

“What? What did you see?” Across the table, Etta was on her feet, excitement and hope lighting up her features.

Jane, too, was out of her seat and beside Bruce. “Did it work?”

Bruce gulped. “I saw him. It looked like a bar or something—I don’t know, it disappeared too quickly for me to see much of anything.”

“Try again—do it again,” Etta instructed breathlessly.

Jane stepped back a little so she was out of the mirror’s reflection.

Bruce curled his hands tight around the mirror’s frame. _Concentrate this time,_ he thought, taking a deep breath. _Focus, and don’t let go._

“Mirror, can you show me Clint Barton?” he asked firmly.

Once again, there were several seconds of nothing before the reflection in the mirror shifted. Rather than the crowded bar, this time it showed a darkened streetscape. There were tall lamps and an occasional car rumbled by. In the middle of the frame, Clint was talking to a woman and a tall, muscular man.

Bruce squinted, the darkness and shadows making it hard to see. He could hear ambient noise, but he couldn’t quite make out Clint’s voice, nor the words of the people he was speaking with.

“Clint?” Bruce tried, but his friend gave no indication that he could hear him. He waited, focusing his thoughts on the image in the mirror in case that was somehow the problem. “Clint?” he repeated, a little louder.

Then the image wobbled and disappeared. Bruce attempted to contact Clint a third time, but the mirror became black and stubbornly remained so before the darkness flickered and reverted to Bruce’s own reflection again. A fourth attempt gleaned the same results, or lack thereof.

He set the mirror down and scrubbed his palms over his eyes. There was a headache brewing in his temples and he wondered if it had something to do with concentrating on the mirror.

“Are you all right?” Etta asked, watching him with concern.

Bruce nodded. “That’s, um, not as easy as it looks. I think using it is giving me a headache.” There was also a good chance it was stress, but for now, he was blaming the artifact.

“Did it work, though?” Jane questioned. “I was trying to peek over your shoulder, but I could only see your reflection.”

“Really?” Bruce frowned at the mirror. _Interesting._ “Sort of—I could see him, and I could kind of hear wherever he was, but I don’t think he could hear me.” He thought back to the scene. “I think he’s somewhere in the past—the cars looked like some sort of old style?”

“How old?” said Etta.

Bruce shrugged helplessly. “I don’t do cars. Somewhere between...the 30s and 60s?”

“Very specific.” Etta fought off a burst of laughter. “Here, let me try.” She gingerly took the mirror from Bruce, then copied his posture, clutching the edges with her hands and staring it down. “Mirror, can you please show me Clint Barton?” 

She squinted and winced and her hands began to shake. 

“Anything?” said Jane.

“It’s just black,” Etta said through gritted teeth. She released the mirror and pressed her hands to her head. “Holy shit, my _head_. How did you do that for so long, Bruce? It felt like it was splitting my skull apart trying to concentrate.”

Jane made some quick notes and then gestured to the mirror. “May I?”

Etta pushed it towards her. “Knock yourself out.”

Jane held the mirror and leaned forward. A little crease appeared in her forehead.

“Mirror,” she said, but then seemed to lose her nerve, as her eyes darted from the mirror to Bruce and Etta and back. Her voice was unsteady and small when she continued. “Please…can you show me…Thor Odinson?”

Bruce’s heart went out to her as she nervously waited to see the man she’d once loved. He held his breath as they waited for something to appear.

Jane’s eyes went wide and she gasped, looking frightened and confused. Bruce was out of his chair at once before he realized there was nothing he could do, nor would he even be able to see what Jane was seeing.

“ _Thor!_ ” she called. Her eyes darted about the mirror and then she set it down, shaken.

“Jane,” said Bruce, settling into the chair beside her. Worry for his teammate fluttered unsteadily in his chest. “What did you see?”

Jane raked her fingers through her hair and swallowed hard. “He was under attack or something,” she replied quietly. “Everything was shaking—the mirror was vibrating in my hands. I could see—I saw these _creatures_ , or at least pictures of them, moving on the computer screens, wherever he was. The wall was breaking, something was loud, like banging and crashing. Thor ran towards the breaking wall, and there was a woman and a man, and… then it went blank. Nothing. I don’t know what happened.”

As Etta had, Jane rubbed at her eyes and temples. “You’re right—it gives you a wicked headache.”

“Maybe we should take a break, then,” Etta suggested. “Leave it for now, and we’ll come back and try again later.”

Bruce wanted to argue—headache or no, he needed to find his team, especially since he seemed somehow more able to handle the mirror than Etta or Jane. Then again, it wasn’t like he and Jane had a plan yet for how they were going to fix this time travel mess. Knowing where—and when—the Avengers currently were wasn’t exactly crucial just yet.

Except perhaps, to his peace of mind, because _not_ knowing was driving him crazy.


	7. Chapter 7

* * *

**[ THOR ]**

_“Well, what if there is no tomorrow? There wasn’t one today.” –Phil, Groundhog Day_

* * *

Nothing.

Darkness. 

Black, empty, nothing. Thor had to be dead, he decided, for he could not be alive. He could not feel his heart beat, did not need breath in his lungs. No sound of any kind—just pure, absolute, silence. But not the kind that pressed on your ears, not the kind that was peaceful and sweet, nor the ominous, uncomfortable kind of silence. Simply nothing.

There was no ground below, no sky above. The absence of stars implied he was not aimlessly floating in space, either. There was no sensation of moving, of standing, of falling, just...nothing. 

Yet his body existed— _he_ existed. His right arm remained black and unfeeling his side. His other hand he stretched out before him, but there was nothing to touch, nothing to see. Endless, complete and utter _nothing._

“Hello?” 

His voice was soft and small. It didn’t echo, and it wasn’t muffled. He cleared his throat and tried again, louder, but the results were the same, as though his voice was incapable of carrying. 

But something _had_ grabbed him—something had pulled. The instant before the crack opened, something cold had penetrated the blackness on his arm, and there’d been a sharp tug as the crack opened, sending him off balance and falling before he had an instant to understand what was happening. Something had caused it. Therefore, he could not be alone. 

It certainly felt that way, though. The longer he was here, the more he shouted, only pure, empty, blank _nothing_ surrounded him. He had no concept of how much time was actually passing—seconds? Hours? Weeks? Did time exist here at all? 

The Void existed in the cracks between the realms, the pockets of emptiness between Yggdrasil’s branches. This space—or lack thereof—had swallowed Asgardians back in the old wars with Ulgoriths. But if this is what they experienced when they were pulled in, did they still exist somehow, somewhere, trapped in a perpetual state of nothingness? Or had whatever thing that grabbed Thor perhaps done something to the fallen warriors instead?

“Hello?” Thor called again. “Why did you bring me here?”

Silence. But then, just when Thor began to wonder if he’d lost his hearing, and he bellowed in frustration, a soft rustle reached his ears. 

“Who’s there?” Thor demanded. 

“You’re very loud,” a voice said. It was strange, otherworldly, ancient. “Has anyone told you that you’re very loud?” 

It came from nowhere and everywhere all at once, and it made Thor’s skin prickle. He spun, looking for the source—or, he thought he was spinning. He couldn’t tell if he had moved at all. 

“ _Where_ are you?” Thor growled. 

“Now that is a much better question,” the voice answered. “But I suspect you know that already.”

Thor scowled. “Show yourself.”

“I see we’re not one for manners. Most aren’t. But at least you’re not wailing in terror.”

Something shifted visibly. Something off-black amongst all the black, moving like liquid or smoke. Thor squinted, trying to discern a form. Suddenly, there was ground under his feet, or at least something solid. Off-black, barely discernible, and impossible to make out more than a few yards away. Yet Thor had the notion that he now stood on _something_ , and there was a sense of _dimension_ to the nothing that hadn’t been there before. 

The liquid or smoke, or whatever it was, slowly coalesced into something vaguely human shaped. When it moved towards him, Thor raised his arm defensively on reflex. 

The figure paused, watching Thor.

“Who are you?” Thor whispered. 

“I am this,” they said, gesturing at the nothing around them. 

He frowned, squinting. He could barely discern the inky figure amongst all the darkness. 

“Here—something more familiar, perhaps?” The dark form shimmer and shifted, forming textures and cloth and flesh, until it became Loki’s likeness. But a chilling, strange version of him—the _eyes_ , there something terribly off about his eyes. 

Thor shook his head. “No.”

“Is that not better?” Loki spread out his hands and grinned, like they were back home and he had played a marvelous trick. Thor’s heart wrenched at the familiarity of his brother’s features colliding with something deeply otherworldly and horribly empty in his smile. 

“Do not impersonate my brother,” Thor growled. 

Loki’s form sighed. “Most appreciate something familiar in a place like this, even though they know it’s not real.”

“I am not one of them.” Thor glared.

“Suit yourself.” 

They snapped their fingers, and Loki’s visage dissolved into an unfamiliar human woman. She wore plain, Midgardian clothes in shades of blue and purple, and her dark brown hair fell in loose waves to her shoulders. She raised her eyebrow at Thor. 

“Satisfied?” 

“Who are you?” Thor demanded again. He’d grown well tired of questions and confusion. 

“You ask a lot of questions.” The woman—entity, whatever it was—rolled their eyes. “One of which, I already answered. _I am this._ As for this form? I don’t know—she passed through here once upon a time. I quite liked her.”

“No more games,” said Thor. 

“Who’s playing games? At least, not _yet_.” 

“Who—”

“Am I? You keep asking that. If I answer a third time, will you be satisfied? The answer, for someone who refuses to pay attention: I am this.” They gestured to the blackness around them. “I am the entity that keeps the Void. I am the Void.” 

“How do I get out of here?” 

Truly, nothing else mattered. The entity did not seem inclined to hurt him—at least, not yet—and he had an awful feeling that he was in a place that no one would be able to help him. Not Rose or Mickey, nor Bruce or Tony—whichever of his teammates could otherwise get the Avengers home. So he needed to get _out_ of the Void as soon as possible. 

“If you want to leave, you’ll have to do the Trials,” they said with a shrug, as though this were the most obvious solution to Thor’s situation. 

Oh, he did not like the sound of that at all. 

“What?” Thor clenched his fist at his side. Why could nothing be simple?

“Well, it’s only fair,” they said. “That’s what everyone else who wants out has to do.”

“What happens if I lose?”

“You stay here.” They shrugged. Another matter-of-fact statement. “Some people go mad, some people go to sleep—or, something like it. Either way, eventually you fade from existence. Nothing can really last in the Void, except me.”

Thor was surprised that it didn’t appear to have a preference to either outcome. At least there was some confirmation that time could pass.

“I can tell you have more questions.” They toyed with their hair and watched him with unnerving, ancient eyes. “You all always have _so_ many questions.”

Thor hardly knew where to start. The thing that kept ringing in his mind was _get out get out get out_ —he wouldn’t stand here and let the Void entity mess around with him for fun. So he shook his head, refusing the situation and the impossibility of it. He would not agree to Trials and he would not fade from existence. 

He was Thor, God of Thunder, and Son of Odin. He was an Avenger. He was not staying here. 

Thor turned on his heel and stormed off, away from the being. He didn’t have Mjolnir, and given the pure, endless emptiness, he doubted there was anything he could hit, anyways. No way to summon lightning. Plus, his right arm was still black and numb—he could move his shoulder and elbow, but he couldn’t feel any of it, as if it weren’t even attached. His left arm worked just fine. 

He kept walking. Or, he imagined he was walking, because even though he put one foot in front of the other, he couldn’t see any indication of forward progress. There was something solid under foot, but it only made him feel like he was walking in place. With an angry growl, Thor ran. 

He didn’t think there’d be a big bright “Exit” sign anywhere, but surely there had to be an _edge_ he could take advantage of—something to break apart, or break through. He ran harder, as hard as he could, mismatched arms pumping, sweat breaking out on his forehead.

The thought occurred to him then, that even if there _was_ an edge, that it could be so impossibly far away that he’d be running for years on end. He’d travelled the Bifrost to far flung corners of the galaxy, but without it? If he’d tried _walking_ to Knowhere or Alfheim? It would’ve taken a considerable amount of his life span, even at his top pace. 

Thor slowed to a stop, panting hard. If he could not run, or punch his way out, then what was left? Fighting the Void monster, with no weapon? Or accepting the Trials and hoping he could fight his way through whatever _that_ turned out to be? He sighed, and turned to run back. 

Only to find that either he had indeed not moved at all, or else the entity had kept pace with him, silent and without any sign of exertion. Thor frowned. 

“Whenever you’re ready,” they said calmly. 

“What…” Thor sucked in a few breaths, his hands planted on his knees. “What would the Trials entail?”

The entity tipped their head to the side. “A series of three tests. Should you succeed, your freedom will be granted.”

“What kind of tests?” He straightened.

“Things that will test you.” 

Thor glared, but the being was completely unconcerned. He supposed if they were physical tests he would be at a disadvantage because of his arm, but he could probably manage. Even something more intellectual—maybe a battle of wills, or riddles—would be doable. He wasn’t as clever as Loki when it came to puzzles, but he could do well enough. 

Regardless, he could only hope it would be something he could succeed at. He didn’t see any other choice. 

“More questions?” the entity raised their eyebrow at him. Unsurprised, only waiting. 

“Why did you pull me here?” Thor asked—maybe it was ultimately irrelevant, but he had to know. 

Too many great misfortunes in his life had occurred because of his status: as an Asgardian, as Odin’s son, as heir to the throne, even as an Avenger. 

The entity finally had a note of confusion on its eerily human features. “You were there.”

“I was stuck,” Thor snapped. “ _Why_ did you grab me? I was about to be free of the wall, I could have—”

“You were already here.” Another plain statement, another eyebrows raise, as if it almost wondered why that was the thing Thor wanted to know over everything else.

He turned away from the thing. _You were there_. It meant nothing—he was nothing to the being. It had no stake in who he was, if he failed or succeeded, spent forever asking questions or wasted away to nothing. Somehow that was more disconcerting than if he _had_ been targeted. 

“Do you wish to undertake the Trials?” 

Thor clenched his jaw and faced the entity. “What must I do?”

“Oh, I don’t really know,” said the entity. “I’m curious to find out.”

Thor scowled. “What?”

“Once you accept the task, they begin. The Trials work differently for everyone. Nobody gets an unfair advantage that way.” They clasped their hands behind their back and walked a few steps one way then back again. “I imagine it will test your character.”

“You speak as if you are not the one administering these tests,” said Thor. 

His frustration kept rising, despite his best efforts. He was just so _trapped_ and the entity a riddle in itself, and he could barely stand to look at its eyes without a shard of strange terror pricking him. He wanted to get on with it, but he couldn’t stop more questions rising to his lips, either. 

“I’m not,” they replied. “The Trials are created, based on what is inside you. I am the Void, but I am not the Judge.”

“Then who is? How do I know if I have succeeded?” 

“You’ll know,” they answered simply. They stopped idly pacing and tucked their hands in their pockets. 

He swallowed. “Will I die?”

“I think that also depends on you.” They titled their head at him. “It will all be very real, until it isn’t.”

_Another cryptic answer_. The thing wasn’t even being mysterious on purpose, simply apathetic and unconcerned with his fate. Thor swallowed. 

“When do I start?” he asked, bracing himself and trying to rally his thoughts. He couldn’t imagine what the Void would find inside himself that he must face, but it certainly couldn’t be something simple or else it wouldn’t be called a capital-T _Trial_. 

The being levelled their terrible, deep gaze at him. “Do you accept the task? Upon failure, you will be left here till you cease existence. Upon success, you will be released, back to where you came from. Do you accept?”

Thor’s mouth went dry but he nodded. “Yes. I accept.”

“Very well.” The being spread their arms out wide as if ready for an embrace. “Then the Trials begin, now.” 

They brought their hands together in a smack that sounded like crashing thunder. The entity disappeared. 

And in the next breath, the endless blackness disappeared too. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter does technically contain some very minor spoilers for Parts 1 and 2, if you haven't already read them, but they are very minor. Just fyi. ;D

* * *

**[ BRUCE ]**

_“Theoretically, if you go to the past in the future, then your future lies in the past. This is a picture of you in the future_ — _in the past.” – Stuart, Kate & Leopold_

* * *

By his fourth day in Boston, Bruce had taken to keeping a lab notebook by his bed and jotting down their progress (or lack thereof), partly to keep it all straight and partly to make sure the days didn’t blend together more than they already had. Going from his quarters to the conference room or lab and back, with occasional stops at the infirmary, had made everything feel very monotonous, very quickly.

_Day 5:_

  * _Made contact with Clint. 1946. He’s been arrested??_


  * _Made dent in Lazarus research—still so many boxes!_


  * _Fury left today on a classified mission. Not sure of return date._


  * _Other Guy still quiet..._



_Day 6:_

  * _Contact with Tony. Approx 12th c England/Scotland (?)  
  
_



He’d hesitated his pen over this entry, trying to decide if he should write down his emotions about the situation too, like a proper diary, but decided against that. It was a scientific recording—plain notes to keep track of the days. He didn’t need to write down the fact that thinking about Tony stuck deep in the past made his stomach ball up with anxiety and stress, both Tony’s sake and history’s.

  * _Contact with Nat. “New Australia” = future?? How far/when?_



He rubbed his palm against his eyes, recalling how she’d tapped out messages to him in Morse Code with her nails. He’d been looking up at her, but someone else was in the room. “ _Fine. Lost. Captured_ ,” she’d tapped. 

Bruce toyed with his pen. He was worried about her as well, but if there was anyone who could more than handle herself in a dangerous situation, it was Natasha. And at least he didn’t have to wonder if her presence would twist history—or least, not _his_ history. 

  * _Possible breakthrough in Lazarus research: more concrete mentions of “incredible device.” Handwritten notes seized from last estate indicate he may have been given technology from somewhere/someone else?_


  * _Agent Etta Dowry assigned as official liaison(/caretaker?) of our “task force.”_


  * _Other Guy still unresponsive._



Bruce couldn’t decide how he felt about the Other Guy’s general absence. There was still a strange, empty numbness inside whenever he reached for Hulk. Any relief at his absence made him feel guilty—Hulk’s absence was something he’d wanted for so long. He had only barely come to terms with their situation being permanent, and now...this. So he resumed attempting ways to snap Hulk out of his metaphorical coma. 

Bruce tried deep breathing exercises, a little bit of meditation, and even some awkward yoga, but the Other Guy stayed silent. So he continued to spend the days pouring through research with Jane, broken up by a steady supply of caffeine and forced breaks from Etta, whose smile remained like sunshine in the bland conference room. 

_Day 7:_

  * _Unable to contact Thor._


  * _Contact with Steve: very brief. Chicago, 70s._



For some reason, when he tried the mirror with Steve, it’d been more difficult than ever to hold on. He’d made half a dozen attempts before finally reaching him, and even then had only got a sentence or two out of him before the image disappeared. Bruce’s head throbbed with an intense headache and, though he tried to push through, it only got worse. 

He growled and pushed the mirror away, burying his face in his hands. 

“Hey, you can only do what you can do,” said Etta, seated to his right. 

“It’s not enough,” said Bruce. “I’ve been here a week, and I barely know where any of them are or what’s going on. I don’t even know if Thor is alive.”

Etta touched his arm and Bruce took his hands away from his face. “You’ve _only_ been here a _week_ ,” she reminded him. 

Bruce sighed. It’d been so good to see their faces, even for a moment. Seeing each of them in turn brought a wave of relief and warmth through Bruce’s every limb. They were separated and so far away, but it made him feel less at a loss and alone, even for just a moment. 

Really, that was why he’d finally moved into the Tower a few months after Manhattan. 

He left to get some painkillers and lie down in the dark of his quarters to chase away the headache, though he couldn’t help finding a small note of real reassurance in Etta’s words. He and Jane were going as fast as they could—especially given that what they were trying to do should be impossible. Even if they managed to find any semblance of clear directions for time manipulation among all of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s and Lazarus’s files, there was no guarantee a solution would be workable, let alone quick. A week was hardly anything, and of _course_ little progress had been made. 

Knowing that didn’t lessen his frustration, though. 

Once the headache had eased, Bruce sat up and tried a different tactic. He summoned his frustration and tried to stoke it into hot anger. He brought forth painful memories from his past, moments when rage had pulsed in his veins, and Hulk had burst forth. He tried to reach deep, to stir the Other Guy to action, to break him out of whatever was holding him back. 

_Wake up!_ Bruce thought. He shouted in his head, he mumbled aloud, he even let out in an angry yell. “Wake up!”

Bruce pictured destruction and flames and punching and roaring. He clenched his fists and let out another yell…

And then he listened to his own heavy breathing, the hum of the ventilation system, his heart thumping. After several long minutes, he picked up his pen and notebook with shaking fingers.

  * _Other Guy: silent.  
  
  
_



~

  
  


By the next weekend, miraculously, their progress actually became tangible. Bruce and Jane had finished their set-up in one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. labs, and though they really only had theories to test, Bruce found it soothing to be doing _something_ besides taking notes. 

Jane sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by large pieces of metal, slotting them together in different combinations and pausing to make notes on the stack of papers at her side. Bruce hunched over a worktable, soldering circuit boards together. As had become routine, Etta stopped by around lunchtime with supplies and demanded they take a break. 

“One minute,” said Jane, which actually meant at least ten, so Etta looked to Bruce for support.

His stomach gave an unruly rumble as he set his goggles and tools aside. “Uh, Jane?”

“Hm?” She looked up like she hadn’t recalled either of them were still in the room. 

“Lunch,” Bruce said with a chuckle. Even so, he and Etta just about had to drag Jane to the conference room where Thomas and Etta had set out fresh sandwiches from a deli down the block. 

Bruce settled into one of the chairs and dug into his ham and cheese.

“How are things progressing?” asked Etta, sipping her sparkling lemon soda.

“It’s...complicated,” Bruce muttered around a mouthful of bread. “Still hard to say.”

“I can’t figure out the numbers Lazarus was using,” Jane put in, half-eaten sandwich already abandoned as she started scribbling again. “If he was trying to open a singular portal or tunnel in time and/or space, that’s one thing, but to essentially do at least six times—at the same time—different tunnels to so many different eras _and_ locations…”

Bruce swallowed and said, “The force and energy required would’ve been astronomical.”

“Could it be replicated? Safely?” said Etta.

Jane nibbled at the end of her pen. “That’s what I can’t figure out. You’d have to be...manipulating all kinds of temporal systems.”

“We’re trying to build some really small-scale prototypes of something we think _might_ get us a way to create one, single portal,” Bruce explained. “Then maybe we can copy those or combine them. But…one alone already involves a lot of materials and calculations to avoid any major, uh, issues. _Time_ isn’t the most, um, stable thing to be messing with in the first place.”

“I wouldn’t think so. I’ve seen enough time travel movies to know.” Etta tapped her finger to her temple. 

Bruce chuckled. “So you’re an expert, are you?”

“Of course! Why else was I tasked to oversee your team? I can quote _Terminator_ better than anybody in S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Oh, really? You seem kinda young to know that movie, considering it’s um, what, almost 50 years old at this point?”

Etta touched her hand to her chest in mock offense. “If that’s an attempt to get me to tell you how old I am, I refuse to give up that sort of critical intel.” 

She coughed loudly, though, and Bruce was pretty sure he heard a hasty _thirty-nine_ in there somewhere. He chuckled and ate some more of his sandwich.

“Also,” she continued. “We still possess this amazing technology where we can watch old movies here in the fancy future even if we weren’t _quite_ born when it came out.” 

“Fair,” Bruce said. 

“And third,” she flipped her hair over her shoulder, “You got a head start coming in from 2013, Dr. Banner, but I was raised right—I’ve seen the classics.”

“All right, all right, I stand corrected.” Bruce smiled at Etta. He appreciated that she was so easy to be around. It tended to be hard for him to find people like that—more so since the Other Guy had shown up. That had made it very difficult to find people who were comfortable around _him_. 

Just as Bruce realized he was staring, Etta’s phone chirped and she looked away, her cheeks flushed. “Excuse me, I need to take this.” She rushed out of the conference room.

Bruce returned to his sandwich, ignoring the wiggly feeling in his gut. His face was warm, but he ignored that, too. 

“So, do you think we can do a trial run today?” he asked Jane.

She scribbled and scratched more notes and shuffled her papers, oblivious to Bruce and Etta’s exchange. “I think we can have something basic and workable by this evening.” Jane stuck her pen back behind her ear and finally reached for her sandwich. 

“Good, yeah.” He finished off his lunch and got up from the table before Etta returned. “I’ll, um, get back to those circuit boards.”

  
  


~

  
  


_Day 9:_

  * _First trial of prototype: failure. Too much fluctuation in frequencies. Equations need rewriting._


  * _Trial 2: failure. Blew out main panel and circuits._


  * _Need more durable parts!_



_Day 11:_

  * _Reworked prototypes with new materials._


  * _Small fire in the lab..._


  * _Fury returned; not happy about fire. No major structural damage, though._


  * _No Other Guy._



_Day 12:_

  * _Ran through multiple tests on myself in medical. No change._


  * _Mirror very unstable? Mostly flickering and noise in attempts at contact?_


  * _No contact with Thor._


  * _Fourth prototype trials: failure._


  * _Other Guy: no change._



He didn’t note the relief at the notion that the Other Guy could possibly be gone for good. He didn’t jot down the guilt that accompanied this relief. He tried and failed not to imagine the comfort of living a life without the Hulk. He pushed away the uncomfortable numbness inside his head in the corner where the Hulk was supposed to be and closed the notebook.

  
  


~

  
  


Bruce took a deep breath, clutching the mirror and clearing his mind as best he could to focus on his friend.

“Mirror, can you please show me Steve Rogers?”

The surface rippled and contorted, and Bruce thought it was going to be a repeat of the past couple days where the mirror had failed to work with him. Then the image settled to show Steve standing at what looked like a bathroom counter, with a number of empty stalls behind him. 

“Cap, I got you back.” Bruce smiled a little and relief washed through him. “Looks like the same day, too.”

“Yeah,” said Steve. “You just disappeared and reappeared…”

“Really?” 

That was strange. It’d been almost six days since Bruce had been able to get even a few seconds with Steve. It was a problem for later, though, as the mirror rarely let him hold onto someone very long. Already, Bruce could feel tendrils of pain sliding along the base of his skull. 

“Steve, before I lose you again, this is important: We’ve all been dropped at different points in time. Be extremely careful—I have no idea what kind of effect this could have on history, but try everything you can to have _no_ effect.”

Bruce had given a version of this speech to everyone else at this point—except Thor, whom he still hadn’t found. He swallowed, once again pushing away what that could mean. 

Steve nodded easily, but guilt prickled through Bruce for having to remind Steve of what that really meant for him. 

“Which means, I’m sorry, but you can’t get in contact with anyone you might know, from…from your old life.”

He hated that he could _see_ the hope draining out of Steve as he spoke. There’d been some nights in Insomniac Tower, as Clint had nicknamed the place, when Bruce had stayed up late communing with Steve. He had an idea of how much it would mean to Steve to even get a glimpse of those he’d lost. Wouldn’t Bruce want to get a glimpse of Betty, if it were him?

How disastrous the results of _that_ would be.

“You’re supposed to disappear in 1945 and wake up in 2012,” Bruce continued. “You suddenly showing up in any one of their lives in the seventies could have catastrophic results. There could be all kinds of ripple effects that we can’t control. I’m...Steve, I’m so, so sorry.”

A sharp throbbing edged into Bruce’s temples. He was almost out of time, but he took a steadying breath and refocused on the mirror. The image blurred a little but remained. 

“I’m working on a solution on my end. I’ll get us back together, Steve. I’ll get you home. Just keep your head down, okay?”

Steve nodded.

Bruce desperately hoped he could keep that promise. That they both could. _I’m trying_ , he thought. _God, am I trying._

The headache spiked and he said a hasty goodbye before setting the mirror down. The sadness on Steve’s face clung to him as he pushed away from the table and went back to the lab. He snatched up his notebook. 

_Day 13:_

  * _Contact with Steve. Same day/minute(?) as first contact somehow?_



If time wasn’t passing at the same rate for him as it was for the others, or the mirror wasn’t connecting them in a linear fashion, was that something that could be replicated? If they could even manage to get one of the mini prototypes to work, that is. 

He tapped his pencil against his knee. The trouble with the mirror was that it was some alien artifact S.H.I.E.L.D. had scavenged a few decades ago—not something built on Earth by an engineer keeping careful records. That meant there was likely some technology, materials, or frankly even actual “magic” at play. Bruce wasn’t one to believe in magic, per se—even fantastic things like the Other Guy could eventually be broken down in scientific terms—but he also had witnessed a demigod wielding lightning and met aliens pouring into New York through a hole in the sky. It was hard not to believe in _something_ after all that.

Every attempt with the mirror the following day was unsuccessful. Though Bruce managed to catch glimpses of most of his team, the images were fleeting and mute, only flashing before his eyes for a few seconds then rippling to black. 

He couldn’t figure out if the problem was him or the mirror. Either way, he couldn’t shake the extra worry that came with the moments he did manage to see.

_Day 14:_

  * _No direct/verbal contact, but some images seen in mirror:_


  * _Clint: dressed for the time period, walking through interior of a home/business?_



The setting hadn’t been much to take in—dark red wallpaper, limited lighting, and worn carpet. Clint had walked by in a long coat and hat, and then the next moment he was gone. He’d looked unhurt, unhurried, and ostensibly no longer in custody, so at least Bruce could be relieved at that. 

  * _Nat: desert, smoke, debris. On the move with a group of people—no threat visible, but what happened?_



Her back had been to him, moving forward with a group of maybe five others, and Bruce only had a moment to process the scene before it disappeared. He remembered destruction: chinks of metal and charred, smoking materials jutting out of sand and scorched earth. Had she been part of the destruction? Involved in causing it or maybe escaping to it? _From_ it? 

Bruce scrubbed his palm against his temple. So many questions, and no ability to ask them. 

  * _Tony: laying down in the dark, with 2–3 other people. Location: some sort of indoor space._



It’d been hard to discern what he’d seen when he tried Tony, but Bruce could remember being above a pair of legs, as though his view was from someone’s chest. The room was small and crowded, and it looked like Tony was asleep, though Bruce couldn’t make out much. He had inhaled to call out to him, but the image vanished before he had the chance. 

  * _Still no contact with Thor._


  * _Fifth trial ongoing; still unstable?  
_



They hadn’t blown anything up with this morning’s tests, but it’d been a near thing. He glanced up at Jane, reworking complex equations on the whiteboard across the room. Mapping probability vectors and trying to fold time in on itself to work out a likely path for the portal destination… It would’ve been a lot easier if they were happy to go anywhere in time or space, but fixing the path to a very specific, down-to-the-minute destination was something else altogether.

Bruce didn’t write that he missed the lab back at the Tower, throwing ideas around with Tony. Jane was a great partner—an actual genius and wonderfully passionate—but she tended to get so absorbed in her work that she forgot he was in the room. Other times, she would think aloud, and while that was helpful when they were brainstorming and problem-solving together, it was distracting when Bruce was trying to think through things on his own. 

Right about now, when Bruce was feeling discouraged, Tony would probably have suggested they switch projects to get their gears turning on something else. Or, they’d stop for snacks, always convenient thanks to the variety of food items Tony kept stashed in the lab. But his life and the others’ now depended on Bruce getting them back, so pauses weren’t much of an option. 

Still, maybe a snack wasn’t a bad idea. Bruce smiled a little, recalling the first time he’d worked with Tony, in the Helicarrier before the Battle of New York. In the middle of a discussion, Tony had simply produced a bag of blueberries for them to munch on and—

“Hold on,” Bruce said aloud. 

His mind raced, and he flipped several pages ahead in his notebook to start jotting. He couldn’t write fast enough, thoughts and calculations spilling out in a flurry. He filled up three pages before he spoke again.

“Jane, _Jane_ —I think I’ve got something.”

“Hmm?” she paused in her own calculations. 

“We can’t do what Lazarus did because the data is so incomplete, right?” He hurried over to her. “We don’t know what materials he had, his own trial and error before he got it to work, none of it.”

“Right. Which means a metric ton of calculations and guesswork on our side until—”

“We don’t need to try and copy what Lazarus did, though.” Bruce held up his notebook and jabbed at a messy sketch. “We just need to try and replicate _this_.”

“The Tesseract machine from the Battle of New York?” Jane raised her eyebrow skeptically. “We can’t exactly go up to Asgard and borrow the Tesseract, especially without Thor around. And we wouldn’t be able to replicate that magnitude of energy…”

“Unless we can. I can’t contact Thor, but what if we _can_ contact Asgard?”

“The mirror?”

Bruce shrugged. “It’s gotta be, um, worth a shot? And then we build the containment unit around it, manipulate the frequencies to split six different ways—” 

“Anchored here, but looping back to 2013…”

“Instead of coordinates out in space, like Loki did in New York…”

Jane tugged her fingers through her hair. “That might actually work... _if_ we can contain the energy flow, _if_ we can actually somehow convince Thor’s people to lend us the Tesseract, and _if_ we have enough of a stabilizing agent…”

“I was thinking iridium? That’s what Selvig used on his version.”

Jane sighed. “We’re going to need a lot—and I do mean _a lot_ —of iridium if we’re splitting the stream six ways and pretzeling it back to the start.”

Bruce nodded. “Plus a _ton_ of protection in here so we don’t vaporize ourselves or the base in the process.”

Jane paged through his notes and cleared space on her whiteboard to begin making fresh calculations. Bruce ran through numbers in his head, on the board, on the computer. The new machine was going to be complicated as hell, with about a 12 percent chance of success, but it was sure better than nothing. Without Lazarus’ actual machine or more concrete records, they could be trying and failing to duplicate his original design for months. 

And they didn’t _have_ months. The image of Tony sprung to his mind and he paused, suddenly unable to stop imagining the worst. He didn’t hear Etta come into the lab until she was repeating his name.

“Dr. Banner? Hello, Bruce?” She poked his shoulder, and he spun around to a teasing smile. 

“Sorry, um.” He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. Usually Jane was the one tuned out. 

“Jane said you guys had a bit of a breakthrough?”

“Yeah,” he said, and Jane passed him his notebook. Bruce hastily made a list on a fresh page, then tore it from the spine and held it out to Etta. “Uh, our shopping list got...bigger.”

Etta skimmed it and her eyes widened. “Holy cow.”

“I know it’s not going to be easy to, um, get all that stuff, but whatever you can do will be a huge help.” Bruce shrugged. “We think, uh, we can actually get me and the other Avengers back where we belong.”

“If we can get enough iridium, that means we can stabilize the input as well as the output vectors…” Jane began explaining their idea in full detail, but Bruce was caught on the way Etta’s shoulders had dipped and the forced cheerfulness in her voice as she “mm-hmm”ed and “of course”ed appropriately. 

That was odd, he thought. It didn’t suit her to seem down. She’d been their biggest source of encouragement after every failed trial, even when Fury had lectured them extensively about property damage, expensing, and being “too old for this shit.” Her supportiveness and ability to attain obscure supplies had made her an invaluable part of their project already. 

And yet, now that a tangible solution had been put forward, she looked almost disappointed. Bruce was staring again, which he only realized when she caught his eye. He pasted on a big smile, though it wasn’t genuine, and something wiggled in his gut again.

“I’ll get to work on this right away,” she said, too brightly. “And be back as soon as I can.” 

Bruce watched her go, and somehow he was disappointed, too.


	9. Chapter 9

* * *

**[ THOR ]**

_Riker: “Someone once said ‘Don’t try to be a great man. Just be a man, and let history make its own judgements.”_

_Dr. Zefram Cochrane: “That’s rhetorical nonsense. Who said that?”_

_Riker: [smiles] “You did, ten years from now.”_

_– Star Trek: First Contact_

* * *

Sharp, frigid wind cut over Thor’s skin. He stood at the base of a mountain, layered with snow and ice. Around him was tundra and more mountains, boulders scattered across the frosty ground. His breath misted before him and he glanced to the figure standing nearby, a blonde woman in plain blue robes. 

“This is the first Trial,” she said softly, her voice somehow a whisper in his ear, yet echoing across the rocky landscape. Her expression was impassive, her eyes as empty as the last entity’s strange smile had been. 

“What must I do?” Thor moved to stand before her.

“Reassemble the statue,” the woman instructed. 

Thor looked over his shoulder at the boulders scattered over the ground. Some of them were irregular shaped and covered in intricate carvings, others were simply chunks of broken stone. There didn’t seem to be any tools, so even if he stacked the pieces back together, he wasn’t sure how he was going to get it to _stay_ together. Though, perhaps that was the test.

With a heavy sigh, he got to work. He still couldn’t feel anything with his right arm—no sensation of the frigid air and sporadic snowflakes, nor the cold stone under his fingertips. He counted it as a blessing that it was technically useable, though it took more concentration than he ever expected to lift and drag stone when he could only feel it with part of his body. 

He started by sorting the stones as best he could, like a puzzle, setting the edge pieces to one side, grouping similar markings or colors. It wasn’t long before he was sweating despite the cold, and puffing with effort, but was confident he’d made good progress. He’d cleared a large space in the middle of the area and dragged a massive piece that looked like the base to it. Then it was a matter of finding the pieces that filled in the broken parts of the base, and moving on from there. 

Thor placed a few pieces of the base, satisfied, and the woman spoke again. 

“Reassemble the statue,” she repeated. Her blonde hair danced around her head in the wind, but she was motionless, unaffected by the chill. 

“I understand,” he said, wiping the chilled sweat off his forehead. He placed another piece.

“Reassemble the statue,” she told him.

He looked at the woman, confused, and found her staring up the mountainside. His heart sank. 

He very much hoped he was wrong, but it rather looked like there was a plinth at the top of the steep slope. And it was _far_ —maybe half the length of the Bifrost from Heimdall’s Observatory to the main palace. On horses, flat, it took only minutes; flying with Mjolnir, a handful of seconds. But at a sharp angle, uneven and littered with boulders, covered in snow and ice, on foot while carrying the pieces of statue? 

Thor let out a shaky breath. _It wouldn’t be a trial if it were easy._

After a few more bracing breaths, Thor got back to work. He chose one of the smaller pieces to start. Making his way up the mountain was slow going. He found the most obvious path, straight up, to be too difficult. His feet slipped and slid over the ice. He fell, banging his knees and scraping his hands on the ice. The statue chunk tumbled out of his grasp and he went back down to retrieve it. 

Thor picked his way in a zig-zagging sort of path, moving from patches of crusted snow to chunks of exposed rock to keep himself from sliding. He lugged the statue piece, shouldering it for a time, dragging it behind him, pushing it on ahead of him. He finally made it to the top and set the piece down, and took a moment to survey how far he’d come. And how much he still had left to do. 

With a grouchy sigh, he picked his way back down the mountain to retrieve a new piece. Fought his way up the mountain. Repeat. Slipping, sliding, scraping. The cold made his fingers numb and the exertion made his brow sweat. 

Another piece. Repeat. He was thirsty, bruised, bloodied, exhausted, and yet he kept going, pausing only for breaks here and there and chewing some snow for hydration. He never stopped very long, fearing he would be unable to continue. Another piece, another, _another..._

Eventually, he had enough pieces at the top to assemble them. He positioned some of the larger ones that appeared to be the base, wondering how it was going to stay together, when the question was answered for him: as soon as the main pieces were slid together, the seam glowed softly, glimmered like tiny fireworks and sealed itself as if it had never been broken in the first place. Each time he slotted a new section in correctly, the magic repeated, reassuring him. 

The statue’s form began to take shape, and Thor recognized it as a massive stone wolf, perhaps fifteen feet tall when he was finished, sitting and guarding the mountain top. Something about it made him think longingly of Asgard and pictured the warm, golden halls of the palace as he retrieved the next few pieces. He painstakingly moved boulders close to the base so he could stand atop them to begin assembling the remainder of the head and shoulder. 

He couldn’t be sure of the passage of time; the sun hadn’t moved in the sky despite it having surely been _hours_ that he’d worked at this. Would it eventually turn to night and he’d struggle in the dark? If he stopped and rested too long, would he freeze to death on the mountainside? 

Breathing hard, sore, freezing cold, and shaking, Thor worked his way back down the mountain. About halfway down, he stepped onto a chunk of snow that gave way under his foot, and then he was falling and scraping over ice as he tumbled down. 

At the bottom, he staggered to his feet, dizzy and limbs hurting. Hot blood trickled down his elbow and his cheek. He grunted, willing himself to stay upright, but had no such luck.

Thor toppled to his knees, landing hard on the ground. His numb arm remained, well, numb, but every other part of him _hurt_. He was too tired, too cold. Another sharp wave of dizziness sent him sprawling, his cheek pressed into the frosty dirt. 

And this was only the _first_ Trial. He was doomed—if he couldn’t finish even this, he was doomed. He sucked in breath after breath, willing himself to get up, but he couldn’t force his limbs to obey him any longer. 

_You’ve had worse_ , he thought. _You’ve been through worse._ He tried to summon memories of battles past—that skirmish in Muspelheim that went on for days and he’d been stabbed, was bleeding out as Volstagg rushed him to the Bifrost… or that time he’d been goaded into going toe-to-toe with a bilgesnipe when he was young and spent two weeks in the healing chambers while Loki read him books and did magic tricks to entertain him…

But he hadn’t been alone, then. He hadn’t been this spent, this trapped.

He shut his eyes against the wave of desperate helplessness that flooded over him. He was supposed to be stronger than this—he was the god of thunder, he was a son of Odin. He was supposed to be worthy of wielding Mjolnir, and if he didn’t get up _right now_ , if he didn’t _finish_ , he would never lift that hammer again…if he ever saw that hammer again... 

Hot tears built up behind his eyes, slipping out without his permission. He cracked open his eyes, and the woman still stood there, as impassive and useless as a statue herself. He didn’t know what the rules were—how long he had to complete the task, if she could offer aid, anything—and she wasn’t forthcoming. But he knew it then, in his bones: He could not do this. 

At least, he could not do it alone. 

He swallowed, locking eyes with the woman, and murmured, “Help me.”

Nothing happened. She hadn’t heard him, or it didn’t matter. She couldn’t help him, or she wouldn’t. He was not worthy of her help, collapsed on the ground, a mess. He closed his eyes again and could hardly think of a time he’d felt more alone and useless and like an utter failure. 

“That statue isn’t going to assemble itself, you know.”

Thor opened his eyes at the voice, and it took a moment to properly register who he was looking at. It didn’t make sense—it was impossible? But then _nothing_ since Lazarus’ bomb had gone off in that shack had been possible. Here he was, lost out of time and space, undertaking a series of trials set forth by an unfeeling Void entity, and standing at the side of the icy mountain was one Steve Rogers.

“Captain…?” Thor forced himself to sit up. “Is that...you?”

Steve cocked his head to the side. “Something like that.”

_The Trials are created, based on what is inside you_ , the being had said. _It will all be very real until it isn’t._

Which meant that Steve was just as present and real as the rocks and the wind and the snow, and just as completely not real. Something sewn together from his memories, a construct of the Trial and not truly his friend. Here, all the same.

Thor didn’t care much about the _how,_ only that _Steve Rogers_ , a friend and teammate, was here—illusion, construct, or not, Thor welcomed it. Past Steve, the emotionless woman actually _smiled_. Warmth bloomed in Thor’s chest. He had done something right, finally. 

“Ready for another bout?” Steve asked, holding out his hand. 

Thor grinned. “Getting sleepy?”

Steve helped him to his feet, and from nowhere, he produced a hefty winter coat and a bottle of water. Thor shrugged on the jacket and after downing nearly the entire bottle, he was deeply relieved and somewhat revived. It was shocking how huge a difference the littlest things made—Steve’s half-smile was very knowing and Thor clapped him on the shoulder. 

“Thank you,” he said.

Steve patted him back. “Glad you finally asked.”

Thor looked to the blonde woman, still smiling softly back at him. She gave him a nod then turned her face towards the mountain again. 

Right. The damned statue. 

Thor faced the remaining stones—still so many, it seemed, but he knew he’d come so far and he was almost there. And now, he had help. 

He squared his shoulders and glanced at Steve. “Shall we?”

Steve gestured. “After you.”

Thor moved towards one of the biggest ones remaining, grasping the sides as best as could. Steve came around the other side and grabbed a hold as well. Together, they lifted it and pushed it and dragged it. Together, they shifted it bit by bit up the icy slope. _Together_ , they reached the peak and wrangled the stone into place. 

Steve swiped his arm over his forehead. “Well, this test is no joke.”

Thor laughed, a deep boom that had Steve chuckling right back. 

They picked their way down the mountain to retrieve another stone, then hauled it, slipping and sliding back up. And another, and another. There was no breath for conversation, not much thought in his head except _another, another, almost there, another_. They shared exasperated looks, relieved glances. Steve caught Thor’s arm to stop him tumbling, and Thor snatched at Steve’s jacket to make sure he didn’t fall either.

And then, finally, the last stone made it to the top. With shaking arms, they raised it up to place it on top of the statue. A sparkle raced over the seam, sealing up the crack. The whole thing gave off a muted, yellow glow, like sunshine shone from inside. 

Thor dropped to sit at the base, leaning against the rocks—inexplicably warm, chasing away the chill and aches in his bones. Steve plopped down beside him. 

“That was a hell of a thing,” he said, passing Thor a fresh bottle of water, once again producing it from nowhere. 

“Thank you for being here, Steve.” Thor accepted it gratefully. “Thank you for your help.”

“Any time.” Steve tipped his head back and closed his eyes. 

Thor chugged a few gulps and passed the bottle back for Steve to have some… but Steve was gone. He watched the empty spot for a moment, acutely missing his friends all over again and endlessly wondering if he ever really would see them again. 

He looked out over the landscape. It was harsh and cold, with mountains jutting from stretches of snow-covered plains, but there was something oddly beautiful about it, too. Something untouched and wild, ancient and secret, a little like the outer regions of Jotunheim. 

Of course, it was all part of the illusion—he hadn’t died of hypothermia or exposure, despite _feeling_ like he probably could have by now, and his fingers lacked signs of frostbite even though they ached and throbbed as if the cold were biting into the bones beneath. His right arm was still without feeling at all. He shivered and huddled a little closer to the warmth of the statue, pulling the jacket Steve had given him a little tighter. At least that was still present.

Just as he wondered if he really _was_ going to be left to die on this mountain after all, or if there was some other task he had yet to complete, the landscape slowly melted to darkness, like water washing chalk off a sidewalk. Thor braced himself, unsure what to expect, as the mountain began to dissolve from the base up. 

In the next breath, he was in Asgard. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder - check out Ragna's fab fanmix for this fic! :D [HERE](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26222632)
> 
> Second, if you are reading and enjoying, I would love to hear your thoughts. And third, there are a liiittle bit of spoilers for part 1 in this chapter, but still quite minor, so just fyi. :)

* * *

**_[ BRUCE ]_ **

_Pops: “Why hold onto someone you must let go?”  
_ _Sarah: “What about you? What will you do?”  
_ _Pops: “Take the long way.”_

_– Terminator: Genisys_

* * *

_Day 15:_

  * _Miniature prototype of new design tested (moderate success, minimal fire)._


  * _Base of full-size prototype coming together._


  * _Etta retrieved a few crates of supplies for next part._


  * _Not surprisingly, getting the iridium is proving difficult. There may be a source in Hong Kong, and one in CERN (Geneva) that can help._


  * _Attempted contact with Asgard: blurry and unstable. No discernible audio._


  * _No contact with Thor._



Jane set the mirror down with a heavy sigh, cradling her forehead in her palms. “What do we do if we can’t talk to Asgard and use the Tesseract?”

“Maybe we could get a hold of Selvig’s research?” Bruce suggested. “Does he still have any records of his work with S.H.I.E.L.D. from my time? Or maybe he could help in the construction? I know it might be, um, not ideal…”

Jane frowned, looking heartbroken. “Selvig’s gone, Bruce,” she murmured. 

Bruce swallowed. He had wondered when Fury hadn’t mentioned the man even once, and when Jane barely talked about him, either. He’d let himself think the reason for Selvig’s absence was something else, like retirement or a new research focus. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

“There was an attack, nine years ago.” Jane touched the wide burn scar on her left hand, unconsciously tracing up her arm where it disappeared under her sleeve. “We were together at the Houston lab together—Darcy, too—when it hit. I don’t remember much. There was a lot of fire, smoke, heat…I know she grabbed my hand, and there was another explosion, but…I woke up in the hospital. They were both dead. Eight others, too.”

“Jane…” Bruce wanted to reach out and comfort her, but he had no idea how. He couldn’t imagine the horrors she’d lived through—in this world. At least where he came from, the world had the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. at full strength.

This…this was the world without them. 

“It was a long time ago,” said Jane. Even so, her voice sounded hoarse with grief. “Anyways. All of our work was lost that day, including any of Erik’s research that might’ve helped us now. I built back what I could, but...”

“We’ll find another way.” Bruce tucked his arms around his ribs. 

Without the Tesseract, he was at a loss for what else could generate the kind of energy they needed. But, without _something_ , the Avengers would stay lost in time.

  
  


~

  
  


_Day 17:_

  * _First full size machine almost complete._


  * _Iridium shipment from CERN set to arrive tomorrow._


  * _Waiting on either contact with Asgard (Tesseract?) or new energy source (Jane has ideas; need materials)._


  * _Etta_



Bruce stopped writing, unsure how to finish the sentence. He could tell something was still bothering her and badly wanted to ask, but he also didn’t want to have the conversation in front of Jane or Fury. As the first real version of their machine came together, though, one or both of them seemed to be constantly around—Jane working with him, Fury supervising. 

“Don’t you have a mission to oversee?” Jane had teased earlier that day when Fury had checked in for the third time that morning.

“I’m overseeing it right now,” he’d grumbled. “You two almost done?”

Jane had shot Bruce an exasperated look, but he’d just shrugged and got back to rewiring the main switches.

“Almost,” Jane said evasively.

“You in a hurry to get rid of us, Director?” Bruce said with a chuckle. “I’ve been enjoying my time in 2031.” He did mean it, mostly.

Fury didn’t crack even a smile. “Things are heating up out there. The less I have to worry about in here, the more I can worry about _that_.”

Bruce paused his work. “What do you mean?”

Fury eyed them as if deciding how much to give up, and finally said, “There was a jailbreak from one of our maximum-security prisons last week. We’ve managed to round up most of the escapees...but not all of them.”

“Are they…?”

“Dangerous and super-powered? Yep.” said Fury.

Bruce swallowed. “Right.” 

That explained Fury’s earlier absences and his increased scrutiny. The sooner he didn’t have to deal with a physicist-out-of-time, the better, Bruce supposed, although Fury’s presence didn’t really Bruce nearly as much as it seemed to bug Jane, who was less used to such oversight. 

_And the sooner the space-time continuum is right again._

Though if anything _did_ blow up again, Bruce knew there would be nothing Fury could do to stop it. He smirked and shook his head, picturing how irritated Tony would be with him monitoring the lab so closely. Or how tight Steve’s jaw would get if Fury was unnecessarily supervising sparring time in the gym, or even how restless Clint would be if Fury was moving about the common room, questioning how everyone was spending their personal downtime. 

Bruce’s tiny smile dissolved. He missed his knuckleheads and desperately wanted to see them again, wanted more than anything for them all to be back safe in 2013. Hope was rarely his strong suit, though, and he could have used some of Thor’s or Clint’s optimism.

After lunch, Bruce tried again with the mirror while Jane went back to the lab. Asgard was another bust—could there be some sort of magic the artifact couldn’t penetrate?—but he did manage to catch Natasha for a few glitchy moments. 

He let her know that he was close to making things right on his end before the image fizzled.

“I’m not getting any of that. Bruce? Hey, Bruce?” She still sounded nearby, at least.

Bruce sucked in a deep breath and focused his will power on maintaining the image of Natasha on the mirror. “Damn it,” he grumbled. “Natasha?”

“I’m still here.”

“We’re close,” Bruce repeated, hoping she’d heard him. The mirror rippled and fell still as the now-familiar aftereffects throbbed through his temples.

It was a relief to know that Natasha was okay—whenever in the future and wherever in the world she was. At least a few members of the team were confirmed safe. 

_At least a few of them._ Bruce knew he couldn’t be sure the worst had happened, especially with time moving at different speeds among them all, but at this point it was impossible not to believe Thor was definitely lost. He couldn’t come up with another reason why he hadn’t been able to catch even a glimpse of the demigod after so many days. Losing him _stung_. 

But if Thor _was_ truly gone, then there was nothing Bruce could do. That meant he had to focus on the rest of the team. For now, they were mostly okay. 

He could do this. More importantly, for now, he had the time to do it _right_ , with the others safe and the Hulk determined to stay quiet.

There was a gentle knock on the door, and Bruce opened his eyes. Etta waved and came into the room. His stomach did its funny wiggle.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“Mm, the usual.” He poked the mirror’s frame with his thumb. “Little bit like my skull’s being split open from the inside by an army of rhinos? I think the mirror might, uh, be Asgard-proof. Or Asgard is mirror-proof.”

“I think I’ve got something that’ll help,” said Etta, sitting into the chair beside him. “Well, with the headache, at least. It’s got peppermint and lavender and rosemary in it. You dab it on your finger, like this, and rub it on your temple, here.”

She demonstrated, gently touched her fingers to the sides of her face, moving in soft, slow circles. Bruce dotted some of the balm to his fingers and mirrored her movements on his skin. He inhaled the refreshing and calming scent, but also could smell softer hints of some flower or citrus—Etta’s perfume or shampoo, maybe. 

“Good, right?” she said. “Thomas picked it up in Capetown last month.”

“You and, uh, Thomas,” he began, immediately regretting the words as they slipped over his lips. Bruce winced. “Sorry, that’s none of my business. I didn’t mean...”

Etta’s cheeks flushed pink. “He’s just my coworker.”

“Yeah, um. Sorry.” 

He kept rubbing gentle circles and moved up to his forehead, spreading the balm. Mercifully, the headache pounding behind his eyes began to recede. 

“I...I’m not dating anyone.” Etta cleared her throat. “At the moment.” 

Bruce tried valiantly to come up with the right response, finally settling on a strangled, “Oh. That’s...”

He attempted to think of something helpful to say, something to do other than stare at her awkwardly, but nothing happened. She didn’t look away, either. 

“Etta…” he hesitated, lowering his hands to trace his fingers over his knuckles. “I…I can’t…”

Her face colored with embarrassment. “No, I know. No, of course.” She capped the bottle on the headache balm and hastily tucked her hair behind her ears. “I never thought…”

“It’s not that I don’t…” Bruce glanced around the conference room as if someone would spring forth and save him from himself. “It’s just…I’m...”

 _I don’t belong here,_ he thought. _I’m leaving—or trying to._ And his mind jumped to all those times all those people couldn’t stand to be near him because of the Hulk—everyone who was afraid, angry, and upset by his presence. _It’s not fair_ —she wasn’t scared of him. She didn’t treat him like a bomb about to go off. She joked with him, she tried to take care of him. 

She could never be with him, even if they wanted to try—he couldn’t stay. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, desperately wishing he could articulate any of this. 

Etta shook her head and twisted her hands in her lap. “No, it’s fine. Here, um, keep it. I hope it helps.” She pushed the balm across the table to him, practically jumping out of her chair.

Bruce jumped up as well. “Etta—”

“Forget about it, Banner.” She forced on a smile and dashed out of the room.

He hesitated again, and made for the door, but the corridor was empty. He raked his fingers through his hair.

“Smooth,” he mumbled. 

  
  


~

  
  


That night, Bruce couldn’t sleep. A conflicted mess swirled in his brain, and despite his best efforts to think about something else, everything kept circling back to guilt and mixed emotions and a decidedly queasy sensation in his gut. 

Right now, there _was_ no Hulk. It remained a horrible and wonderful kind of relief. 

The longer this went on, the more Bruce remembered what it was like to be just _Bruce_ —not _scientist plus Hulk_. Just a man, no dual entity, no world of anger and carnage under his skin. It’d been so long since he felt this normal—it was like putting on glasses for the first time and realizing how much you couldn’t see before. 

_Normal._ The word didn’t fit, yet it was something he’d ached for since the aftermath of the gamma-ray-gone-wrong.

 _Normal_ could’ve been with Betty. _Normal_ would never have wreaked havoc in Harlem or fought aliens in downtown. _Normal_ wasn’t a giant green rage monster. If the Other Guy never woke up, Bruce could be _normal..._ here. Now.

He flipped over onto his back, hot guilt burning up his throat. No, Bruce knew better—he couldn’t be normal, he couldn’t _have_ normal. That ship had sailed years ago. 

He couldn’t let himself get comfortable here, either. If he did, he wouldn’t want to go home. If he didn’t go home, he’d leave his team stranded in time. Even if he figured out how to put them back in 2013 but leave himself here, he still risked a worse, alternate version of reality. What the hell was wrong with him that he would consider any of that, even for a second?

Bruce sat up and hugged his knees to his chest as his eyes prickled with a rush of unshed tears. The man who woke up naked in a crater, having to ask if he’d hurt anyone—he was the one considering it. The man who’d put a bullet between his teeth to make sure he _couldn’t_ hurt anyone else—him, too. He was the one aching and wishing. That was the man considering being normal, being safe, being whole. Just this once.

Maybe if the other Avengers were okay—if they could be safe, too, maybe it would be all right. Not ideal, but if he and Jane really couldn’t bring them home, they could all start over fresh. They all could have a chance at change, too. New, normal lives.

It was after 3 AM and it was a shallow justification, but he gripped it tight all the same. Bruce flung off his blanket and pulled a sweatshirt on. Irrational hope welled up inside him instead, and _God_ , it was so dangerous how good that felt.

He padded down the now-familiar corridor, squinting under the fluorescent lights. He swiped his palm across the security lockpad for access and flicked on the lights, then settled into his usual chair. Bruce held the mirror up and took a long, deep, worried, hopeful, excited, scared, breath.

“Mirror, can you please show me Tony Stark?” 

Tony would hate it in Scotland, and Bruce would miss him terribly—he would miss all of them. He knew it was so very stupid to hope things could work out as-is, and yet...

The mirror resolved into a clear image, though Bruce wasn’t sure what he was looking at—a wall? Ceiling? Something wood and something stone?

“Tony?”

The image didn’t change, and Bruce inhaled slowly, keeping his focus trained on the mirror. Tony had to be close or else the mirror wouldn’t have steadied. 

“Tony, are you there?”

Finally, he heard his friend’s voice answering, and Bruce immediately realized how unprepared he was for this impulsive conversation. He was even more unprepared for the sight of Tony. 

Tony’s face leaned into the image, looking down at Bruce, and he looked rougher than Bruce had ever seen him. His hair was shaggy and matted, his beard was scraggly and scrawled across sunken cheeks. His skin was smeared with dirt and dried blood, confirming the worst of Bruce’s fears for him, and his ratty shirt hung off bony shoulders. Tony Stark was dishevelled, wasting away, and worst of all, openly scared.

“God, Bruce, you have no idea how good it is to see you,” Tony croaked, grinning.

Bruce’s gut twisted. What had happened? What had Tony been through? How the _fuck_ could Bruce have been so unbelievably stupid and selfish?

“Tony…my God, what…”

“Geez, Bruce, hi to you too. Do I really look that bad?” Tony chuckled and scratched his face. 

“How long has it been?” Bruce asked. He was on Day 18 or so, but the mirror wasn’t exactly connecting them in the most linear fashion.

“A few weeks, I think. Or a month or something. It’s hard to keep track.” Tony’s tone was an attempt to be flippant and easy, but it was too dark, too exhausted.

“ _A month?_ Oh, Tony…” Bruce squeezed the mirror. _Stupid, selfish Banner_ —here he was contemplating his growing feelings for Etta and his endlessly contradictory relationship with the Hulk, while Tony was slowly dying in medieval Scotland.

“What? Hey, Bruce, don’t—no, I’m fine, it’s fine—how’re things—” Tony inhaled sharply and slowed himself down. “Tell me you’re bringing me home.”

The machine was close, but it wasn’t ready, and he didn’t know how long it would take. He hated his original intentions for contacting Tony, hated that he couldn’t give his friend a straight and confident “yes.” The feeling must have shown on his face, because Tony reacted before Bruce could bring himself to say anything.

“Oh.” Tony’s shoulders sank and he looked more miserable than ever. 

“No, it’s not like that—look,” Bruce sighed. “The farther out you are, the more time is passing for you. We—it’s barely been—” 

_18 days._ He’d had less than three weeks of this, and he’d let himself slow down and just because the team was supposedly safe. _Supposedly._

“We’re trying,” he tried instead. “But we haven’t had enough time to—”

“We?” Tony raised his eyebrow and Bruce opened his mouth to answer, but Tony jumped in again before he could. “Look, you gotta get me out of here, Banner. I’m a freaking prisoner of war in a Scottish castle! And they’re about to make me fight for my freedom in some duel, and I’m pretty sure I’m gonna die here—”

Sharp pain stabbed behind Bruce’s eyes. He struggled to hold his focus on the mirror—he couldn’t lose Tony now. It took everything he had to keep his mind on the task at hand and not on Tony’s words: prisoner, duel, _die_.

Tony’s features were etched with worry, blurring in and out of focus. 

Bruce clenched his jaw. “Just hold on, Tony,” he said. “Stay alive. We’re coming, I promise.” 

He let go of the mirror and the headache smashed against his skull with its fullest force yet. He didn’t let himself go back to his room to get the relief of Etta’s balm. He deserved this pain. He deserved to feel like shit. Thor was dead, Tony was about to be, and Bruce had been daydreaming about being _normal_. 

He kicked his chair away, and when that wasn’t enough, he grabbed and threw it over the table. It banged into the wall and knocked over boxes of files, sending papers and folders spilling across the floor. Bruce threw another chair for good measure, and another.

The Other Guy still stayed traitorously silent. 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you love Thor and Loki, this chapter is for you. ;)

* * *

**[ THOR ]**

_“I had no idea where this journey would lead me, what opportunity might present itself. I could only hope it would bring me closer to the standing stones of Craigh na Dun. If so, I was determined to reach them, knowing this time I must not fail.” – Claire, Outlander_

* * *

The walls implied that the space was his childhood home in Asgard. Everything was warm and bathed in golden light and a rush of homesickness greeted Thor as he climbed to his feet. Savory smells drifted up from the kitchen, and he could hear the distant clanging of swords in the training grounds. His boots echoed dimly as he walked. 

But much like a dream-version of the space, it was also all wrong. He shouldn’t be able to smell the kitchen unless he was on the lower levels, and he’d need to be on the east side of Odin’s Palace to hear the training grounds. Yet a glance out the spacious balconies to his right gave him a view of Heimdall’s Observatory—something only seen dozens of levels up and far to the north. Besides, the Observatory had been destroyed during Loki’s attack on Jotunheim, so it shouldn’t have been there at all anymore. 

He found the blonde woman from the mountain a little farther down the corridor. She was as impassive as before and raised her arm to point at the doors at the end of the hall. Thor waited, but she said nothing. 

“This is the second Trial,” she said, that strange whisper that touched his ear yet reverberated around the space. 

“What am I to do?” he asked. 

She only turned her head to follow the direction of her hand. 

“Very well,” Thor mumbled, and walked to the doors. 

They opened of their own accord as he reached them. The room beyond was not familiar at all, long and lined with ornate, gilded mirrors. He braced his fist at his side, unsure what to expect, and stepped forward. The doors slowly shut with a dull click behind him. 

As he passed each mirror, memories shimmered across them, playing out in perfect clarity like a Midgardian film reel. Thor paused at the first one, seeing himself as a child, playing games with Loki. The game shortly turned into shouting and wrestling over some silly disagreement, and Odin stepped in to separate them. 

He moved on to the next one, watching himself sword training with Volstagg, while Loki hung back in an archway. He could hear the clacks and crashes of the wooden practice swords, the shouts of encouragement from Fandral. Odin cheered Thor-in-the-mirror on, and when Loki moved to join the fray, Odin waved him off. Bowing his head to hide his hurt, Loki retreated. 

Thor glanced away and walked on. 

He’d always known Odin had favored him on occasion, but he also let himself chalk it up to personality differences. Loki was secretive and full of mischief, built for magic and academics like Frigga, and filled with stubbornness and slick words. Odin had no patience for it and grew easily frustrated when Loki opted for a sneaky solution to a problem instead of a bold one. 

Thor, though, grew up brash and thirsty to prove himself, throwing himself head first into any physical task presented with little thought. He liked combat and took well to it, which had only pleased Odin all the more. Thor spent countless hours sparring with Hogun or Volstagg, honing skills with Fandral and Sif, riding alongside all of them in battle and fighting well. 

_The golden prince_ , Fandral called him. 

_I remember a shadow,_ Loki had said on the mountainside. _Living in the shade of your greatness._

If Thor was the sun in the Asgardian court, then it only stood to reason Loki would be the shadow. 

Thor stopped, swallowing hard. It wasn’t that he had never noticed, never considered that truth. He had —of course he had. He’d been blind and foolish and arrogant, but never so ignorant as to dismiss that Loki was underestimated, underappreciated. He’d gone out of his way to include Loki in things Odin deemed Loki wouldn’t want to be a part of. 

Their mother had also taken him specially under her wing, teaching him magic and how to hold his own in Odin’s court. Thor had dragged Loki out of bed late at night so they could sit out on the balcony, naming stars and drinking ale stolen from the kitchens. 

_You are a fool, brother,_ Loki had said, affectionately, his pale cheeks flushed. 

Thor had laughed, clapping his arm around Loki’s shoulders. _That is why I keep you around._

He’d never wanted Loki to feel lesser or alone. Never _wanted_ him to feel like second place, even if so many others treated him that way. Thor couldn’t hope to possess the same skills and knowledge his brother did, and his respect for those skills was higher than the heavens. 

Thor’s steps brought him before a mirror showing the dark, Midgardian mountainside—

_We were raised together, we played together, we fought together_ — _do you remember none of that?_ Thor’s eyes stung as he heard his voice spilling from the mirror. 

_I remember a shadow,_ came Loki’s reply, just as he remembered it. His eyes wild, empty of the spark and affection that should’ve been there. _I remember you tossing me into an abyss_...

“No,” Thor croaked aloud. “You let go. Why did you let go?” 

But of course, the mirror didn’t answer, only started over. _I remember a shadow…_

Thor kept walking, memories shimmering and echoing over one another. He saw feasts, with Loki smiling, his clever fingers swirling golden magic in the air to conjure illusions to make everyone laugh. He saw fights—him yelling, Loki yelling, Odin yelling, Frigga intervening.

_You miss the truth of ruling, brother…_

He saw Loki, left behind and forgotten as Thor rode away with the Warriors Three. Odin gifted them both new armour, but Thor was also given Mjolnir. 

_I never wanted the throne…I only ever wanted to be your equal._

He saw Loki let go, falling through the stars, disappearing into the whirl of an unknown galaxy. Thor’s heart broke all over again and he moved past glimpses of himself in bed, the room bathed in moonlight, the sound of his grief drowning out other mirrors…

The fight on the Bifrost, where Thor begged his brother not to fight, begged him to stop. He pinned Loki with Mjolnir, he shattered the Bifrost to save Jotunheim…

_Give up this pointless dream. Come home…_

A quiet day in the library, Thor scribbling away and Loki distracting him with floating books, always when the archivist’s back was turned...

_Have you forgotten everything I taught you...about a warrior’s patience?_

The Battle of New York, with the Chitauri pouring in through a hole in the sky, and Loki’s erratic eyes. Thor’s own desperation to save him, to save the Midgardians, save his _brother_ , even though everything and everyone said it was too late, everything was lost, Loki was lost...

_I was a fool...to think you were ready…_

And his father—that day in the Observatory. Stripping him of everything, and banishing him to Midgard...

_You are unworthy of these realms…_

He paused before the last mirror as helplessness, shame, and heartache washed over him as if he were standing there, on the Helicarrier, again. Agent Coulson lay on the ground, wheezing and bleeding, and Thor was trapped behind cracked but impenetrable glass. Loki’s smirk was smug, surreal in its coldness. 

_The humans think us immortal…shall we test that?_

The image shimmered and started over, as if a short recording on repeat. Thor-inside-the-mirror tumbled into the glass cage, desperate to stop his brother, only to realize he’d been tricked. He watched again as Loki preened and flickered into existence behind Coulson to stab him through the heart.

_You are unworthy of your title…_

Thor turned away, his eyes stinging and his own cry of horror echoing from the mirror. He had failed Coulson, had failed the other agents, the rest of the team, Banner. Everyone. He had failed catastrophically that day and no amount of downed Chitauri later could make up for that. 

_You are unworthy of the loved ones you have betrayed..._

He pressed on to the golden doors at the end of the hall, tightening his fist against the words that echoed behind him in his wake—words and emotions and memories, tangling and searing and branded across his very soul. 

_You are unworthy._

He knew before the doors fully opened what he would find inside. Or rather, who. 

“You took your time,” said Loki, spreading his arms wide in greeting. 

“Brother,” Thor murmured, knowing it wasn’t his brother. It wasn’t the madman who’d ravaged Earth, and it wasn’t the broken man who’d simply let go and tumbled into the abyss beyond. It was another illusion of the trials. Thor’s heart ached nonetheless. 

The room was lavish with colorful tapestries, elaborate furniture, and golden light spilling in from towering windows. Asgard glittered outside, beautiful and ageless. Loki swept around the table in the middle of the room.

“Oh, such pity in your eyes,” Loki snapped.

“I tried…” Thor swallowed. “I tried to save you.”

“And that is what you fear most, don’t you, brother? Failing me? Well, that has already come to pass, so what is there to fear anymore?” 

Thor closed his eyes. Shame, loss, grief, anger, guilt, guilt, _guilt…_

_The Bifrost shattered. A cascade of warm air and rainbow light sent them pinwheeling out into the stars, and water sprayed and the Observatory crashed and exploded. Thor grappled for Loki_ — _if they were to fall, they’d fall together. All was lost, but his brother wasn’t_ — _he would not lose his brother again._

_And then Odin caught them, snatching Thor’s ankle before they tumbled into the nothingness. Thor barely had a moment to register to relief that he and Loki were not doomed, that he held Loki’s staff, and on the other end, was Loki._

_“I could have done it,” Loki said, gazing up at Odin, aching, and so very desperate. “For you…”_

_“No, Loki.”_

_Thor couldn’t see his father, but he heard the sadness, the hurt, the disappointment. He watched Loki’s heart, so clear in his expression, reduced to shards in his chest_ — _more had happened between them before this, so much more that Thor didn’t know until after Loki’s supposed death_ — _those two words had severed whatever last thread Loki had been clinging to. There was nothing left for Loki, not in Asgard, and not with Odin._

_Thor wasn’t enough, Frigga wasn’t enough._ Nothing _would ever be enough._

_The emptiness flashed in Loki’s eyes and Thor knew, his own heart jumping to his throat in panic, a split second before Loki moved_ —

_“Loki, no!” He called out and he tried to reach for him, to stop him, if he could just have a few seconds more, he could catch his sleeve and stop him. Loki, no._.. _no..._ please, _no..._

_But Loki let go. Loki chose the unknown, chose death, chose the abyss._

Thor opened his eyes. 

“No, Loki,” he murmured. “I failed you, yes. I failed you so many times over the years. I should have been better, I should have stood up for you so much more than I did with father, and with the court. But I shouldn’t have needed to—and that is on our father, and on them. It is not on you, and not me.”

He stood then, shaking, but still standing. Loki stared at him, part incredulous, part offended. 

“I failed you, and I know that,” said Thor, stepping towards his brother. “But you… _you_ failed _me_ , too.”

Loki huffed. “What? When, in all our lives, did I fail _you_? The chosen son, the heir, the beloved prince?” He spat the titles out like poison.

“You didn’t give me the chance,” Thor replied. “You began to lock yourself away from us—from me. You chose tricks, you chose treason.”

Loki sneered. “I did that for the good of the realm.”

“You did that for _you_. And you never gave me the chance to know of your true heritage.”

“You would’ve hated me for it.”

Thor shook his head. “You never gave me the _chance_.” When Loki turned his face away, still coiled like an angry snake, Thor added, “But you _do_ know that I would not have cared. You were—you _are_ my brother, Loki, by blood or not.”

“How very noble,” Loki growled. “And easy to say now, with all that has happened. With me, wasting away in the finest of prison cells.”

“Another choice of yours,” Thor pressed. “And not mine. I tried to save you. I tried to stop you.”

“You failed,” Loki bit out.

“I did,” Thor admitted, repeated, _heard_. Understood. He held out his hand to his brother. “But I never ‘tossed’ you into the darkness, Loki. You let go.”

His brother shook his head—so angry, full of denial, every muscle tensing with it. Outside, the Asgardian sky darkened from the vibrant orange of sunset to the velvet indigo of night. 

“I never would have let you go.” Thor’s voice cracked, sorrow and truth, bleeding through. “I chose you, brother, and you...you chose death. Loki, you let _me_ go. ”

His ribs stung where Loki had stabbed him on Stark’s balcony, though the injury was long since healed. His cheekbones ached where Loki had punched him in Heimdall’s Observatory. His fingers cramped where he clutched the staff so tightly it ought to have broken, and instead, Loki released it. 

Loki faced him. His eyes shimmered with unshed tears—when he was left behind, when he was passed over, when he was alone, when he let his guard down, when he _let go_. 

Thor kept his hand out, and even as he waited, wished with his whole being for Loki to take it, he knew he wouldn’t. His brother has been gone a long time, and whatever came out of the abyss, whatever attacked Midgard, truly _was_ a shadow. It wasn’t even really Loki with him now.

But if a shadow was all that he could have, Thor would still take it. 

The night sky seemed to bleed into the room, just then. Gently curling around the windows, seeping over the curtains, pooling on the floor like ink, as if the room was being dipped into the sky, liquid and endless. Thor took another step towards Loki, who lifted his chin, defiant. 

As the night sky sloshed over their boots, Loki’s expression softened. For one moment, he smiled, and it wasn’t cruel or empty or sharp as razors, it wasn’t delighting in misery or smugly holding back the punchline to a cosmic joke. It was simply his brother. Thor knew that this was goodbye, more than any moment he’d had with his brother since before they had broken down Jotunheim’s door together. 

“Goodbye,” Thor whispered aloud—confirming it, to them both.

Loki flickered and disappeared in a flash of golden light, just like his most favored illusion. 

Thor lowered his hands to his sides. The night sky filled the room, gently rising above his knees like black, starry water. Thor felt only peace and the lingering sorrow and grief of losing his brother once again. A hand touched his shoulder and for a fleeting moment, Thor expected to see Frigga when he turned. Instead, he was met with a knowing smile from Natasha, of all people. 

“We all have baggage,” she said softly. Once faded scars on her wrists and hands looked dark and fresh. “Nobody ever said it was easy.”

Thor swallowed. Natasha wasn’t one to share her demons, but she sometimes wore the look of one haunted by horrors no one else knew. He remembered the way Loki had taunted her back on the Helicarrier, the way she’d pretended to tremble, and Thor had never quite forgotten that, false though they both may have been. 

“What do I do now?” Thor wondered—asking the Void as much as he was asking Natasha. _How do I move forward without Loki?_

She removed her hand from his shoulder to grasp his hand tight, solid and reassuring. 

“You keep going,” she said, and the encroaching night sky had reached his waist, her chest. Their hands dipped into the darkness, but he could still feel her grip. “If there’s reason to have hope again, you’ll find it.”

Behind her, the hall of mirrors shifted, like one of Loki’s illusions, and he saw the prison in Asgard where Loki was being kept. Whether it was real or another concoction of the Void, he couldn’t be sure, but he saw Loki pacing, and his mother shimmered into existence in the cell with him. He couldn’t hear them, but Loki slowed, and he turned, and the anger he wore as a second skin melted a little. 

“You’ll find it,” Natasha whispered. 

The prison cell faded to darkness, and the night sky swallowed them both up. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not sure if this was wholly achieved, but I wanted to kind of bridge the little bit of a gap between Thor in _Thor_ , who was in denial of Loki going “bad”, Thor in _Avengers_ who is desperate and clinging to hope Loki can be saved, and the bitter Thor is _Dark World_ who has more or less given up until he and Loki work together and reconfigure their relationship in the wake of Frigga’s death. 
> 
> (Yes, the real reason for Thor's changes is mostly different writers/directors, I know, I know, but I still want to find a way to smooth the spaces in between. XD)


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or, the one where things go from bad to so much worse...
> 
> Major thanks to inkspire for helping me brainstorm and search through Marvel comics wikis for suitable villains. ;D

* * *

**[ BRUCE ]**

_“You built your time machine because of Emma’s death. If she had lived, it would never have existed. So how could you use your machine to go back in time and save her? You are the inescapable result of your tragedy, just as I am the inescapable result of you.”_

_– Über-Morlock, Time Machine_

* * *

“Good mor—oh, are you okay?” Jane’s grin as he entered the lab turned into a concerned frown.

Bruce ducked his head and ignored Jane’s stare. “I didn’t sleep very well last night.”

After he’d made an incredible mess, and after a shift agent had checked to make sure he was okay, Bruce’s anger had subsided into a dull ache. He’d cleaned up the conference room as best he could—except for the hole in the wall, which he couldn’t do much about, and the broken chair, which he’d pushed into the hallway for somebody else to deal with. And then he’d lain awake in his bed until he couldn’t take it anymore.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Bruce—that sucks. I think it was a full moon last night, and I always have trouble sleeping on a full moon—I don’t know why. I mean, I know the moon causes gravitational effects on the tide and the influences it can have around the globe, urban legends or not, but…”

Jane rattled on while Bruce parked himself at the machine’s base. He didn’t feel much like talking as he got to work. The image of an emaciated Tony kept appearing at the forefront of his mind, no matter how much he tried to concentrate on the task at hand. 

Had Tony gone to battle in the duel yet? Had he already fought and died? If hours had passed here, how many days was that for him? Was it even uniform? Would Bruce ever know if he made it out? He crammed several interlocking panels together and shoved the panels into place on the base with enough force that the whole contraption groaned. 

“Are you…is there something else bothering you?” Jane asked, tentatively peering around the machine at him, cross-legged on the floor and glowering at the tools and pieces in his hands.

“I’m fine,” he grumbled. He probably should’ve told her what happened—he normally told her whatever he saw in the mirror. 

“Okay.” 

He wasn’t fine, and they both knew it, but Jane let him have his space. 

Bruce sighed. She didn’t deserve his bad mood. He managed to focus long enough to assemble a large portion of the machine, leaving spaces for the incoming iridium shipment, before he left the lab to take a break. Hopefully he could clear his head.

There was a chance, he reasoned, that Tony _could_ be okay. Maybe he’d miraculously won the duel; he was a fairly competent fighter hand-to-hand. Maybe he’d talked and charmed his way out of it—he was more than competent at that. Maybe, if time was nonlinear between him and the mirror, the duel hadn’t even happened yet, and Bruce still had time to make this right. 

He had to believe that, or something like it, because he didn't know what else to do.

Bruce didn’t get far when he rounded the corner to see Etta. She looked up from her phone at him before he could backtrack out of her sight.

“Ah,” he stopped and traced his fingers over his knuckles. 

Etta sighed. “Look, we made it awkward. Rather than make it worse, let’s just...move on.” She smiled brightly. “Okay?”

He wanted to explain, but instead he nodded. “Yeah, um. Yeah, okay. And for the record—”

His next words never made it out of his mouth as a colossal explosion sounded somewhere in the base. They both startled, and the floor beneath them vibrated. 

“What the—” Etta whirled.

“The lab—” He darted for the door. 

“I don’t think that was—” 

Another _boom_ rocked the base. Lights flickered, and screams sounded down the corridor. The floor trembled like an earthquake and Bruce grabbed onto the doorframe for support. 

“That wasn’t the lab.” Etta had her gun out and took off down the hall. Bruce ran after her. 

The base was in chaos as they ran—agents scrambled past them, shouting orders, calling for medical, for backup, for weapons, and for Fury. Etta led them to the main area of operations, where monitors sparked, chunks of ceiling fell, and agents bolted to and from stations. Etta rushed towards the largest console and conferred quickly with the bruised and harried agent there. 

There was a roar like thunder and the building trembled. Bruce made to peel off and make sure Jane was okay, but she came barrelling into the main operations center with Fury clomping in a hurry after her. 

“What happened?” she asked breathlessly. 

“An earthquake?” said Bruce, though the uneven vibrations under their feet and through the walls felt like something else. “In Massachusetts?” 

“What do we got?” Fury barked.

Etta had gone starkly pale when she spun around. “It’s Avalanche, sir.”

Fury let out a string of ugly curses and immediately started hollering out orders. 

“An avalanche? From where?” Last he checked, there weren’t mountain ranges anywhere near Boston.

“Not _an_ avalanche,” said Jane shakily. She’d gone pale as well. “ _The_ Avalanche.”

“What?” Bruce breathed, and Jane pointed. Mug shots, photographs, and archive footage of a man in a black and silver bodysuit appeared on one of the cracked monitors in the control hub. The man was muscular, massive—bigger than Thor, even—and his chest and limbs were adorned with bulky silver armor. 

“One of the escaped supervillains?” he asked. 

“He creates powerful vibrations that can destroy inorganic materials,” Etta explained quickly. “Earthquake-like effect. Shoving air, ground, and water around, that kind of stuff. He can disrupt building foundations, throw trucks—our weapons are only any good if we can get a shot off _at_ him.”

Live footage from the street outside the S.H.I.E.L.D. base came up on the screens next. The man, Avalanche, bellowed,

“You thought you could contain _me!”_ His arms shook and he slammed his fists into the ground. 

“How do you—” Bruce started. 

“Hold on to something!” Etta shouted. 

The building groaned beneath them as the rumbling increased. Agents dove for cover, and Jane and Bruce dropped under a nearby desk. Chunks of ceiling rained down around them, yelling drowned out by crashes throughout the base. 

Bruce’s heart slammed against his ribs. He squeezed his hand into a tight fist and tried to find the Other Guy. _Now would be a great time to wake up!_ He needed to help, he needed to get out and protect Fury and the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and Jane and Etta—and the machine that was his friends’ only hope. 

Nothing stirred inside him except rising panic. _C’mon, c’mon, c’mon…_ He clenched his teeth and closed his eyes, imagining the Hulk, yanking him up, shaking him. _Wake up, you bastard!_

“We need to go!” Jane shouted, and Bruce snapped his eyes open.

They scrambled out from under the desk. Fury barked for them to follow the nearest evacuation team, and Jane yanked Bruce after her. He glanced over his shoulder at Etta, who had been given a helmet and was making for the opposite side of the room with the S.T.R.I.K.E. teams. 

_Wake up_ , _Hulk_ , he shouted in his head. _Wake the hell up, damn it_ — _I need you now, Hulk, wake_ up!

Nothing. Maybe there wasn’t enough panic or fury inside, or maybe Bruce wasn’t in enough peril to jolt the Hulk out of his slumber. He broke away from Jane and tore off after Etta, ignoring Jane’s shouts and then Fury’s. 

“I can help!” Bruce yelled. Of course, he couldn’t do much if Hulk _didn’t_ wake the hell up, but Fury didn’t need to know that. And if there was ever anything that would rouse the big guy, it _had_ to be this. Hulk wouldn’t let him die.

Sweat poured down Bruce’s back as he burst out the main doors alongside half a dozen agents. Avalanche stood in the middle of the street, which was already little more than shattered pavement and overturned vehicles. Sunlight glinted off his silver helmet and chest armor, and the air seemed to wobble and shimmer around him when he moved his hands.

“Your day of reckoning has come!” Avalanche boomed. “I am the Avalanche and nothing can stop me!” 

He swung his arms, and another blast shook the ground. Agents crouched behind crunched vehicles were knocked back, guns flying from their hands. 

Bruce dropped behind an overturned delivery van beside Etta.

“Bruce! What the hell are you doing?” she demanded.

“I can help,” he panted.

Etta glared at him. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast.”

Bruce clenched his fists tight and shut his eyes again. The ground shook beneath his knees and Avalanche hollered out more threats of revenge and destruction.

_I’m in danger_ , Bruce thought furiously. The van trembled and groaned with the force of Avalanche’s powers rippling through the air and ground. _You big green bastard, do you hear me?_ We’re _in danger! Come out!_

Face hot, Bruce opened his eyes and spotted a car that had been providing cover for a few agents collapse inwards and jerk over the ground, leaving them exposed. He tried to concentrate, but he couldn’t block out the chaos of another wave of destruction.

_They’re dying! Wake the fuck up!_

“You will all fall before me!” Avalanche yelled, swinging his arms in a wide arc. The ground split and tore up in chunks, throwing debris at the cars and agents.

“Banner, get _down!_ ” 

Etta shoved him as a boulder-sized piece of asphalt came hurtling their way. Etta didn’t have another second to get herself out of the way as the debris came down hard and fast, landing with a sickening crunch on her arm. 

“Etta!” 

She cried out and Bruce scrambled around to her other side. 

“Are you okay? Oh my God…” He threw his weight against the rubble, but it was far too big and heavy for him, and her fellow agents were far away and scattered behind other cars. Some of them, too, were now pinned by debris. 

Tears streamed down Etta’s cheeks. She was pinned from her bicep down, and something was going to kill her if he didn’t get her free _now_. 

What the hell was he supposed to do? Without the Hulk, he was physically limited, on the verge of complete panic, and any agents still standing were busy trying not die themselves. He called for help, but his voice only added to the cacophony. 

Bruce grasped Etta’s other hand and she clung to him to like a lifeline. He tried not to look as terrified and helpless as he felt, but was sure she could see it all over his face. Another rigorous rumble moved across the ground, and Bruce leaned down to shield Etta as best as he could. She cried out as the ground and the boulder shifted and settled.

For a moment, Bruce thought they would both die here. Some piece of ground or building or whatever was going to land and kill them both. None of the agents would be able to get a shot off, and there was no that was going to happen unless—

“Wait, you said inorganic materials?” said Bruce, leaning close to Etta’s face.

She nodded, biting back a cry of pain as the ground shook again. 

“What about organic?” 

Etta shook her head. “D—doesn’t work.”

“His powers don’t affect organic material?”

“R—right.”

Bruce stood on unsteady limbs to peer over the truck. A few agents ventured closer to Avalanche in a wide circle, but once he saw them, he threw vibrations their way, ripping up the asphalt beneath them and sending them flying. So he could move the ground beneath their feet, but not the humans themselves. 

And, Bruce noticed, Avalanche was avoiding the trees across the street. When he spun to attack the agents there, he crouched to throw his waves through the ground instead of up through the air as he did towards the base. If he couldn’t use the trees, that was one thing, but specifically avoiding them… 

“You cannot defeat me,” Avalanche crowed, revelling in the chaos he created. “S.H.I.E.L.D. will fall today, even if I have to crush you one by one! Come and out play, agents! Come and get me if you can!”

Bruce was not a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. He was not Thor. He didn’t really have superpowers, and apparently he didn’t even have the Hulk today. But he _could_ create a distraction. 

Bruce took a deep breath, looking down at Etta and her utility belt. He bit his lip, a fast plan forming. He just needed to buy them seconds.

“B—Bruce, don’t…” Etta’s teeth chattered from shock and she fumbled at his arm with her free hand. 

“You need help and you’re not going to get it like this,” he said. 

Another thunderous wave roiled past them, the air kicking up dust and rubble. The boulder trembled and Etta screamed again. Bruce hated himself for it, but he took advantage of the moment, ducking to unhook the grenade from Etta’s belt. 

“I’ll be right back,” he said, and took off, ignoring her shouts.

He darted around the edge of the perimeter the agents had set up, stumbling and flailing over the uneven ground as Avalanche shot wave after wave through the area. More agents were downed, or worse. Bruce tripped and tasted blood and dirt, but he held the grenade tight, and got back up. He tumbled into a collapsed car but pushed himself back up even though his leg was smarting, and blood snaked down his forearm. 

He belly-crawled past some agents crouched behind a brown van. They shot him mixed looks of worry, surprise, and irritation.

“Get back, you idiot!” one of them hissed, motioning frantically. “You’ll get yourself killed!”

Bruce pushed on, and when Avalanche had his back fully turned, Bruce scrambled to his feet and ran for the biggest tree by the shattered sidewalk.

Avalanche spun on his heel to target the agents Bruce had just run past—they had attempted to pop up and aim while the villain wasn’t looking. Bruce clung to the tree with both arms, still holding the grenade, as the air roared past him and chunks of asphalt pelted the agents and their van.

“No one can come close!” Avalanche guffawed. 

Bruce inhaled— _Hulk, last chance_ —and hopped to his feet, stepping out into the open. “I can,” he shouted. 

Avalanche whirled and Bruce’s insides went liquid. He was completely exposed and if he was wrong about this…

“Oh ho! A challenger!” 

Behind his back, Bruce pulled the pin. 

“Where’s your gun, hmm? Or is it to be fists?” Avalanche mocked. He threw his arms behind him, sending dirt and debris spraying in an arc behind him, not taking any chances at getting caught off guard. 

Bruce swallowed and said shakily, “Fire usually does the trick for me.”

Avalanche snorted. “Then where are your matches?”

Bruce threw the grenade. 

Avalanche swung his arms up in defense as the grenade exploded. He let out a furious bellow as fire and smoke and shrapnel blasted around him. The force from Avalanche’s latest wave sent Bruce flying past the trees, smacking hard against a wrecked car, and crumpling to the ground, knocking the wind from him. Hot bits of metal sliced over his skin, thunking against the asphalt and the car. He tried to roll away, gasping for breath. Pain shot through his legs, his chest—

The Other Guy didn’t come out.

Sporadic gunfire erupted as Avalanche roared and the ground undulated beneath Bruce. Chunks of rubble flew by. Bruce had a hazy impression of Avalanche dropping to his knees, his suit smoking, debris soaring through the air. Something cracked Bruce at the side of his head and he tasted dirt and blood again. 

Then, nothing. 

  
  


~

  
  


Bruce moaned when he opened his eyes. Everything hurt and stung and ached.

Blearily, he registered that he was in the medical center, though it looked worse for the wear. A few agents worked to clear chunks of debris and remove or repair damaged equipment. Staff bustled back and forth between beds occupied by injured agents.

A rush of dizziness had Bruce moaning again. 

“Try not to move too much,” Dr. Hess’s voice hovered over him. “You’ve been through the ringer, Dr. Banner.”

“Did I hurt anyone?” Bruce asked without thinking. 

Dr. Hess grumbled. “There’d be more dead if it wasn’t for you, I think. That bastard, Avalanche...”

Bruce slowly opened his eyes again. Dr. Hess shook her head, blinking fiercely as she bandaged the burns and wounds on Bruce’s arms. She let out a huff. 

“That’ll have to do for now—just. Don’t move. I’ll be back.”

“Where’s Jane? And Etta—Agent Dowry?” Bruce asked, but she didn’t hear him as she hurried on to the next patient. 

He glanced around the crowded medical center, but when he immediately didn’t see either of them, the worst case scenario jumped to his mind. He made to get off the bed despite Dr. Hess’ warning, and wicked, white-hot pain shot through his legs. He bit back a yelp of pain and waited until the blurry wave of dizziness subsided.

“Bruce, don’t get up.” Jane’s voice came near him a couple minutes later. “You look like you took a beating.”

He looked up to find her close by, motioning for him to lie back down with her free hand. Her other arm was in a sling and her face sported an array of bruises and shallow cuts.

“So do you. You’re okay?” he asked, easing himself back to a comfortable position.

“More or less,” said Jane.

Bruce clenched his jaw. He wasn’t supposed to be hurt—not like this, not to this level. The Other Guy should have stopped the worst of it. He touched his tongue to his swollen lip and tried not to shift his body too much as he took stock of his pain. Under the bandages, his skin was hot and stinging, and his hands and face were raw with scrapes and burns. Frankly, he felt battered from head to toe.

“What happened to you?” he asked instead of answering Jane. 

“I went with one of the teams evacuating from the main hub, but we couldn’t get out in time.” She gingerly sat on the edge of his bed, careful not to jostle him. “One of the hallways collapsed in on us and some of us got pinned down. Every wave jostled everything around us… Finally, it stopped, and eventually they dug us out.”

“Was the rest of the team okay?” 

“Mostly, yeah,” Jane answered. “A couple of guys got the worst of it—I think a bunch of people got rushed to the hospital.”

She stared around the room without blinking. Jane’s exhaustion and sadness had alarm bells clanging through Bruce. There was more she wasn’t saying.

“Jane, what _happened?_ ” he repeated. “Where’s Etta? _”_

“The same thing that always happens, Bruce. Attacks and death and destruction.” She turned to finally look at him, and her voice was so terribly flat. “Fury’s dead. Agent Thomas, too, and as far as I know, at least six others. They finally got Avalanche, at least. Shot him in the legs, subdued him. Again.”

“What about Etta?” Bruce pressed.

“I don’t really know,” Jane murmured. “I...I haven’t seen her since...the attack.”

Bruce closed his eyes to stop the tears prickling across them. 

“Bruce?” 

Jane’s voice was even smaller and Bruce tried to brace himself for more bad news. 

“The lab...the lab caved in,” she said. “And I don’t know if we left the mirror in there, but…Bruce, I think the machine was destroyed, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently movie grenades aren’t exactly accurate—shocker!—compared to real grenades. Basically, movie grenades are big balls of fire and pizazz, and you can more or less avoid the effects of them if you’re outside a certain not-too-big radius. IRL, [grenades are more smoke and extreme shrapnel, which easily kill within 5 meters, injure within 15, and the shrapnel can even reach up 230 meters](https://www.wearethemighty.com/entertainment/grenade-mistakes-military-movies). In this fic, I decided to aim for something in the middle so there was a big ol’ fireball, but also a whole lot of shrapnel, coupled with a few last shockwaves from Avalanche. This left Bruce and a lot of agents pretty injured, and a couple dead. (Some other agents were taken out in partial building collapse or succumbed to their injuries in the chaos.)


	13. Chapter 13

* * *

**[ THOR ]**

_“If you see an antimatter version of yourself running towards you, think twice before embracing.”_

_―J. Richard Gott III, Time Travel in Einstein’s Universe: The Physical Possibilities of Travel Through Time_

* * *

The night sky became a massive cavern in the next breath. 

The rocky ceiling melted into darkness, and the walls were lined with merrily burning torches. Some sort of magic flowed from the firelight, making the place as warm and well-lit as an Asgardian feasting hall, though the space was easily several times bigger than even the largest hall in the palace. 

But this cavern was otherwise empty—no furniture, no indication of what the space was used for. The blonde woman appeared far to his right, and Thor looked to her for guidance. 

“This is the third Trial,” she told him, and once again her voice was quiet, right beside him, and bouncing around the cavern at the same time. “Choose.”

Thor glanced around, but there didn’t seem to be anything _to_ choose. Did she mean choose a torch on the wall? Or was there something he could not see? He waited a few moments as he had back in the illusion of Asgard, but she simply nodded at him.

“You will choose,” she reiterated, and she faded away like she’d never been there in the first place.

“Choose _what_?” Thor grumbled.

A figure formed at the other end of the cavern, shimmering in golden light. For a moment, he thought it was an illusion of Loki again. But as the figure strode towards him, and the light dissipated slowly away, Thor stared at...himself. 

It was him, but it wasn’t—the other Thor was much younger, and somehow hard to look at. The golden light seemed to lie just beneath his skin, giving him an otherworldly glow, and he moved too fast. His blue eyes were more like shards of ice, and something about him was too _sharp_ —his grin was cutting, his motions slick and harsh, his armor full of severe angles instead of the curves of Thor’s own. 

“Well, well, well,” said the other Thor, coming to a stop a dozen feet away from Thor. “What do we have here?”

“Who are you?” Thor asked. 

It was a stupid question—it was clearly _him_ , but it was so very much _not_ him at the same time that his gut churned with dread. All Thor could think of was the horror movies he’d seen in Insomnia Tower with Natasha. He had to be seconds from watching his own face melt or explode, or for his double to murder him—that was usually how it went in the films. 

“Why, I’m the prince of Asgard,” the other one replied, cocky and scoffing like Thor could not be _that_ dense. “Thor Odinson, protector of the realms, heir to the throne.” His grin was shallow and arrogant as he added, “And _you_ are…?”

“ _I_ am Thor,” Thor growled. “Son of an Odin, protector of the realms, and an Avenger.”

The golden prince laughed, brash and loud. “You? You are nothing. You, with the rotting arm, beaten down, exhausted, trapped here, in this place? You are nothing but a hindrance—a shadow. A step on my way to greatness.” 

Thor glared and the other one laughed all the more. 

“Truly, pathetic. Be on your way now, and I will spare you.”

Thor didn’t move, only scowled. Was _this_ the choice he was supposed to make? To face... _himself_? A fight to the death?

“Or, perhaps you _would_ rather meet your end at the hand of the prince of Asgard.” The other one flashed another cocky smile. He held out his hand and Mjolnir flashed into his grip, sparkling and shining like the day it was first gifted to him. He gave it a showy twirl.

_Was I truly this awful?_ Thor wondered, knowing even as he thought it, that it had been true. There had been years where he sought battle, just to prove his physical prowess, just to feel _alive_. Sif had called him insufferable, Loki had advised him to back down, and Thor had brushed them off and dragged them along. He’d been invincible, revered, a shining star streaking across the galaxy—utterly unstoppable. 

A close call in Muspelheim that had left Volstagg gravely injured had finally snapped some long-awaited sense and humility into him, but, it truly wasn’t until he’d been exiled to Midgard that he finally took to heart his mother’s lessons about pride. That he’d finally grasped that he was not as invulnerable as he once thought, that his life should not have been a series of mindless battles, that his actions had consequences, that loving others above himself was _everything_ …

“I _was_ you,” Thor bit out. “I learned how to be better.” 

The golden prince sneered at him. “You cannot be me—you are soft. Broken.” He pointed Mjolnir at Thor. 

Thor threw out his hand to call for the hammer, to get it away from this strange reflection, but his heart sank when the other Thor merely laughed and spun the hammer with flourish. 

“This isn’t _yours_ ,” he mocked. He flung it right at Thor and it sailed past his head. Thor didn’t flinch and he knew better than to try to grab it—if he wasn’t worthy to call it, he wasn’t worthy to hold it, and he’d only find himself smashed over the cavern floor trying to do so. 

The hammer swung back around and slapped back into the golden prince’s hand. 

“What’s it to be, then?” the other one asked. His cape fluttered and swirled as he paced, showing off with the hammer and shooting Thor smug looks. “Weapons? Though you have none. Fists?”

Thor did his best to ignore the thrum of frightened anticipation pulsing through him. Fighting _himself_ was hardly ideal. 

On the one hand, if it truly was a version of himself, then he ought to know how to counter any moves the other one made. This one was blinded by pride and arrogance to an astounding degree—Thor could see that now. Surely he could use that cockiness to his advantage—wound his pride, stoke his temper, poke at the insecurities buried underneath all those layers of swagger and recklessness. 

On the other hand, he possessed no weapons, and the prince had Mjolnir. Thor’s right arm was technically functional but utterly unfeeling which was going to make combat tricky at best. The cavern offered him no advantages, and the blonde woman had disappeared, so Thor didn’t think he was supposed to ask for aid in this challenge as he had in the first Trial. 

“Hmm?” The other Thor prompted, spinning Mjolnir until it was merely a silver blur. “Fight me, old man.”

Thor raised his eyebrow. “Old man?” He was perhaps a hundred years older than this Thor, but that was nothing in an Asgardian lifespan. 

“Here, I’ll even give you the advantage.” He strode forward and set Mjolnir down, handle up. The prince smirked and gestured to the hammer, and offered Thor a mocking bow. “You _are_ worthy, aren’t you? If you really are me, then go ahead. Pick it up.”

Thor hesitated. Frankly, after what happened on the Helicarrier, after watching Loki murder Coulson, after being unable to stop his brother from destroying so much of Manhattan, Thor hadn’t felt very worthy in a long time. 

_Whosoever holds this hammer...if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor_. 

“Go on,” the prince sneered. “Lift it. Fight me. Let’s get on with it—I have a victory feast to attend.” 

Thor stared at the hammer, his fingers itching for it, his heart aching for it. His own hammer was lost in time. Perhaps if he could prove himself here and now, then this replacement could be his? He swallowed. He couldn’t discern what the test of this Trial was—where was the choice, what choice was he supposed to make?

“No?” the other one cocked his head. “Would you rather I simply destroy you, then?” His icy eyes flashed and he looked dark and cruel. 

In a blink, he rushed at Thor, fist colliding with unnatural force against Thor’s cheek. Thor tumbled backwards and the prince landed a couple more fierce blows, despite Thor struggling to throw him off. Then the prince stepped back, panting, and skimmed his bruising hands over his hair, smoothing it back into place. He cast a dark look at Thor, who shakily pulled himself onto his knees, his face and chest throbbing. 

“Coward,” the prince spat. “ _Get up_. Go on—pick up the hammer.” 

When Thor didn’t rise, the other one circled him, taunting, his booming voice slashing through Thor.

“You are weak. If you were me, you would fight. If you were worthy of my power, my strength, you could hold the hammer. _Coward_ —get up.”

Thor stared at the hammer, his mind flowing with memories. A battlefield, maybe five or six hundred years ago, as Thor circled a fallen foe. Taunted, yelled, sneered. Another time—a night of feasting and Frigga had cautioned him to be a gracious victor, but Thor had dismissed her. Thor, planting his foot on the charred remains of a demon, holding his hammer high and spouting on about the glories of war and battle. 

_I am him. He is me._

Thor bowed his head and closed his eyes. Guilt and doubt slithered through his veins. _I am him._ This brash, arrogant boy who dreamed only of victory. _He is me._ Always choosing to fight, to revel in it. 

He thought himself changed, no longer this reckless, ignorant boy before him, but did he not still rush head first into a fight, even now? _Fight_ was always his first instinct, his first thought. And how was that so very different from the Thor before him?

That Thor rode into Jotunheim on a minor infraction. That Thor incited a war between the realms over nothing. That Thor was banished, _that_ Thor was unworthy. 

He opened his eyes, casting a sorrowful look at Mjolnir. The prince’s taunts and jeers blended into an ugly echo, filling the cavern. 

Yet Thor, here and now, was _also_ unworthy— _still_. He fought to save Loki, heedless of the fact that he could no longer _be_ saved. He barrelled into a fight with the Hulk on the Helicarrier, he flung himself into that glass cage. He’d broken down Lazarus’ house instead of understanding the situation, and he’d punched the wall to stop the Void’s magic instead of waiting for Rose and Mickey to work theirs. 

Fight first, fight first, _fight first._

That instinct had not changed. If he ever deserved to wield the hammer, he certainly did not deserve to wield it now. Odin had made a mistake restoring his power. 

“Well?” the other Thor prompted. “Will you not answer me? _Are you worthy or not?_ ”

It still hurt to look at him, but Thor raised his eyes anyways. “I am not,” he replied. It was a horrible sort of relief to say the words aloud. 

The other one scoffed and let out a bellow of cruel, scathing laughter. “Then you dishonor this place—you dishonor your family, your name. You dishonor _my_ name. You don’t deserve your titles or your power.” He shook his head, circling Thor. “And you thought yourself an Avenger, too, how truly quaint. What _would_ they say if they could see you now, hmm? How sad and lowly you’ve become—compared to what you once were.”

His harsh laugh echoed endlessly, reverberating over Thor’s skin, clanging around his bones in a rhythmic chant: _unworthy unworthy unworthy_. The gleam of Mjolnir mocked him—an arm’s length away and impossible for him to grasp ever again. 

“Um, sorry,” the voice came from somewhere beside Thor, penetrating the horrible laughter. Thor glanced up as the shining prince stalled his victorious pacing. 

Bruce Banner offered Thor an awkward little wave. And after Steve coming to his rescue on the mountain, and Natasha speaking to his grief in the Asgardian chamber, it was utterly fitting that Banner would come to his aid here, now. The laughter in the cavern disappeared like mist in the sun.

“Sorry, I just,” said Bruce, tucking his hands under elbows. “I don’t know who this guy is, but, um, he’s totally out to lunch, right?”

The prince let out another huff. “Excuse me?”

Bruce cleared his throat and gestured for the prince to back away. The prince, maybe so startled or taken aback by Bruce’s appearance, complied even while looking rather confused to be doing so. Bruce moved closer to Thor, casting a frown at Mjolnir. 

“I’m just saying. You’re not here because of who you _were_ or whatever mistakes and junk are in your past. You were him, maybe—although he is um, kind of an ass—but you’re not anymore. I know that. _You_ know that.” 

Bruce glanced over his shoulder, and down at the far end of the cavern, Thor caught sight of Tony and Clint by the rocky wall, carefully watching the proceedings. Clint gave him a knowing nod, Tony a sort of impatient shrug, like he couldn’t believe Thor hadn’t figured all of this out already. 

“You know what Loki chose to do isn’t on you,” Bruce continued. “You _know_ you’re not that schmuck over there anymore. So what’s really the problem?”

Thor swallowed, struggling to find the words. “I...I failed…”

Bruce chuckled. “If, um, that isn’t the subtitle on this team, I don’t know what is.”

His gaze drifted back to Mjolnir. How many times had he reached for it, never hesitating, knowing with full confidence that it would rush to his outstretched fingers? How many times did he reach for it, now, holding his breath, wondering if it would come at all? 

_You are unworthy of these realms_ , Odin had said. But Thor had helped with the rebuilding of Jotunhiem, had promised himself as a guardian of Midgard as much as Asgard, had become a part of a team that put their lives on the line constantly to keep Midgard safe. 

_You are unworthy of your title,_ Odin had said. Thor was still the son of Odin, no matter what the golden prince said. Even if he failed this test, even if he wasted away in the Void, that fact would not change. He was still the god of thunder, and outside of this miserable, never-ending Trial removed from time and space, he used that power for good. Never again for selfish whims—not since Jane. 

_You are unworthy of the loved ones you have betrayed._ No, he had not betrayed them. He had made mistakes, but he had also made amends. He understood the burden he’d been carrying for Loki and let it go. And now, he understood that by recognizing his instincts, he could change them too. 

Thor stood, and Bruce moved aside. The golden prince strode back over, impatient and constantly in motion. 

“Finally,” he barked. “What say you?”

“I know I am unworthy,” said Thor, and Bruce shook his head, but Thor held up his hand to quell his friend’s protests. “I will never be truly pure of heart or have the strongest will, never escape my doubts and fears. I will make more mistakes and I will fail.”

The prince grinned, radiant in pride and triumph. 

“But you lack what I possess.” Thor stopped in front of Mjolnir. “I choose to give my life to Midgard, to Asgard, and the good of the people in both realms. I _choose_ my family, I choose my friends, I choose my team. I choose Jane and I _choose_ to fight for the good in the universe, even if I falter or misstep. Even _when_ I fail.”

The prince scowled at him. 

Thor gestured to the hammer—he could see it now: It was no more than a shining facsimile that could never outshine the real thing. 

“And…” Thor inhaled and exhaled. “I choose not to fight you.”

The prince frowned. 

Bruce nodded. Across the cavern, Clint clapped, and Tony gave him a thumbs up. Thor suppressed a smile and stared down the golden prince—who somehow had grown paler, and shorter?

“So very noble,” the prince spit out. He raised his hand and the hammer flew to him. “May you be so noble, even in death.” 

The cavern crackled with electricity. 

“Wait!” Thor held up his arm. He’d chosen _not_ to fight—

The prince raised the hammer up, and lightning snapped and streaked to him, rippling over his limbs and changing his eyes to supernatural, shocking blue-white. He swung his arm down in a mighty arc. But he wasn’t aiming for Thor. 

It did not cross his mind that he was inside the Void. It did not register that the prince meant to kill him, too, only that he might kill his friend. Thor was between Bruce and the cascade of lightning before he finished inhaling. 

What normally would have absorbed into his own limbs back on Asgard instead seared into his back, fried his skin, sizzled over his bones. His vision went bright white, and astronomical pain coursed through every nerve. The blackened, numb arm shattered like glass under pressure. Thor cried out in agony, tumbled to his knees, exhaling, succumbing to the death that most assuredly was coming. 

His muscles twitched. He blindly grasped the empty place on his shoulder where his right arm should have been. His skin stung like it was on fire, like his very bones underneath were on _fire_ …His vision cleared enough for him to understand that Bruce was okay, leaning over him, his forehead creased with worry. 

Thor tried to move his lips— _Is he gone?_ _Are you all right?_ —but Bruce shushed him. 

“Just hold on,” he said. “It’s almost over.”

And oh, yes, Thor knew that to be true. He could feel it. He was dying. Every part of him throbbed and burned and pulsed with pain, his breaths were shaky and weak, his vision blurring again. He’d ride to Valhalla and tell the tale of his last act to his ancestors…

Everything slowed and melted to darkness and he floated away. Thor could do nothing more than accept his fate.

The pain, mercifully, faded. His left hand rested on his right arm. 

_Wait._

He slowly opened his eyes, clueless as to what he might see, and was again met with deep, unending darkness. _How?_ This time when he inhaled, his breath was strong and steady. His chest, unharmed. Then somehow, there was ground under his body, or something like it. Off-black, barely discernible, and impossible to make out further than a few yards.

Gingerly, he sat up. His right arm was back—black as it had been before, and he still couldn’t feel his fingers, but the veins that had been crawling up his neck now gently receded as he watched, snaking towards his elbow, revealing healthy, normal flesh in its wake. 

“I don’t understand,” Thor murmured. 

And the woman-shaped entity that ruled the Void stepped out of nowhere to peer at him curiously. Thor startled and gaped, trying to piece together his experiences with little success. 

“Which part?” the being asked. 

“I...I thought I was dead?” Thor tried. He’d been dead, _surely_ he’d been killed—the incredible pain...

They shrugged. “Yes, it probably felt like that. It wouldn’t have been much of a sacrifice if it felt nice.”

“I chose not to fight. Was that not the test?” 

“Hmm, yes and no. It was part of it, but then your ‘friend’ was in danger.” They smiled, making air quotes around _friend_. Their expression reminded Thor of how utterly unsettling the being was. 

He swallowed, feeling quite stupid. Bruce had never really been there—he’d been just another concoction of the trials.

“But you didn’t remember that,” they said, echoing his thoughts. “You acted, without hesitation.” They clasped their hands behind their back and walked back and forth before Thor as if puzzling out a difficult problem. “You showed strength and humility at the mountain by seeking help. Of course, it took you _quite_ some time to figure that one out. Your go-to is brute force, hmm?”

Thor didn’t have a reply. His cheeks grew warm under the entity’s searching stare. “My...pride interfered,” he admitted. “As it often does. I see now if I had sought assistance sooner, the test would not have been nearly so difficult.”

“Hmm,” they nodded. “A lesson you continue to learn, I think.”

“I…” Thor took a deep breath. “I often fear, if I cannot overcome something by my own hand...I will not be worthy of the power and responsibility bestowed on me by my father.” 

And there it was—the truth of it all. He had taken Mjolnir, his power and position in Asgard, for granted for years. He had flaunted it, often intentionally. Once Odin had, rightfully, stripped him of that, Thor worked to earn it. Which was good, in that he did not take it for granted, but it also filled him with ever-present doubt. One of these times, one of his failures, one of his mistakes, and he’d no longer be able to wield his hammer. He’d no longer be worthy. 

“But you made it beyond your past failures,” the being continued thoughtfully. “Despite your doubt and fear and worry. In the hall of mirrors, you kept going.”

Thor gave a nod. He hadn’t once thought to stop—the goal had seemed to reach the other end, and so he had done so, even while his heart ached and his head hurt from the onslaught of memories both painful and warm. 

“I’ve seen one similar to that where they lose it all—lose their sense of self and time, just weep in front of mirrors for _ages_.” They flicked their head over their shoulder. “But you—you released yourself of burdens that were not yours to carry and did not abandon all hope. Which, I have to say, with a brother like that, you probably _should_.”

“I...” Thor began, but the being held up their hand, and he fell silent.

“You nearly lost it at the end there, didn’t you, though? The eternal dilemma, worthy or unworthy… Always tapping into those past failures and family baggage—a classic.” They tapped their fingers to their chin. “And then… then you finally waited instead of attacking the first chance you got, _and_ you gave your life for another—who, ultimately, wasn’t even there, just something from your head, but _still_.”

The entity walked a full circle around Thor, humming thoughtfully. 

“The speech was a nice touch. Bit over done, but. Still. Such interesting results.”

Thor hardly breathed, terrified to miss a word. _Did I pass or fail?_ Was he doomed to wither away, trapped in this nothingness? Could he even dare to hope he’d escape this nightmare?

“Well, that was fun,” the being said, exhaling like they’d eaten a good meal to their satisfaction. It turned away, and Thor jumped to his feet, panic stuttering through him. 

“Wait,” he said, and no, no, no, he could not be trapped here, he could not _die_ here, what could he have done differently— 

They cocked their head to side, the Midgardian woman’s hair brushing over their shoulders. They smiled that strange, uncomfortable, ancient smile.

“Tell Rose and the Doctor I say ‘hi’.”

The solid ground beneath Thor disappeared, and he fell. 

The entity disappeared high above Thor, and air rushed past him. Thor called out in surprise and horror. He flailed his arms, desperate to grasp something in the endless blackness, and he couldn’t see, couldn’t feel, except he kept _falling_.

A crack of light came into view far below him, and Thor held his breath, bracing for impact, and he tumbled into it, through it. He fumbled limb over limb, crashing into some sort of furniture and equipment, finally landing in a very confused heap.

He let out a loud groan.

“Thor?” Rose’s concerned face came into view, hovering over him. 

“Bloody _hell_ ,” said Mickey, appearing on the other side.

Thor moaned again, feeling rather like he’d been trampled by a stampede of bilgesnipe. He sat up slowly with Mickey’s help, and Rose fetched him a glass of water. The blackness on his right arm only covered his hand and wrist, though it seemed to have stopped moving in either direction at all, now that he was out of the Void. And the wall, for that matter.

“Are you all right?” Mickey asked. “What _happened_ to you, mate?”

Thor thanked Rose and downed the water in a few greedy gulps. The crack he’d fallen through in the wall sealed up with a loud _snap_ , causing Mickey and Rose to yelp.

“Okay…” Mickey shook his head, then repeated. “Thor, what happened?”

“I met the entity that...controls the Void.” Thor eyed Rose. “It said to tell you and the Doctor ‘hello.’”

Rose startled and glanced at Mickey. 

Thor gave them a shortened version of his experience, and by the end of it, managed to get to his feet and take a seat at one of the desks. The water helped to clear his head a little and, with a pang of worry and guilt, he finally remembered the larger situation at hand.

“Have you asked after the parameters for the Battle?” he asked, apprehensive. He was in no shape to fight in a Battle of Honor, but he could hardly expect Rose or Mickey to take on the task, either. 

“Huh?” Mickey said at the same time Rose exclaimed, “Oh!” They traded looks and turned back to Thor. 

“Actually, we took care of that.” Rose smiled at him. 

“You...did?” Thor glanced between the two of them, impressed and confused at the same time. He cleared his throat. “I do not mean to sound...less than polite, but...how?”

Mickey shrugged. “The usual, I guess, really.”

“Bit a this, bit a that,” Rose replied, gesturing vaguely. 

Thor raised his eyebrow. “The Mekzatorians are not easily swayed…”

“I don’t remember _exactly_ what we said, but it was something along the lines of...learning from each other’s mistakes, nurturing a lasting friendship instead of trying to battle to the death and create bloodshed...that sort of thing.” It was Rose’s turn to shrug. “I was very convincing. They agreed, and after everything, they gifted us a fancy mirror, thing.”

Thor stared. “You didn’t _fight_ …?”

“We didn’t need to, in the end,” said Rose. “We went up there, expecting to, but then once we got there, we kind of just…” 

“Figured ‘what would the Doctor do?’ And then did that.” Mickey scratched his head. “It was a while back, now, I don’t remember what you said.”

Rose bit her lip. “Should’ve written it down. It was a good speech.”

Mickey chuckled. “He woulda been proud.”

Thor swallowed. “A...while back?”

It was only then that he noticed things in the control room were decidedly different from when he’d last seen it—the cracks in the walls from the Mekzatorian attack had been patched, the debris cleared away, and the toppled work tables were righted and covered in boxes. 

“How long?” he asked, trying not to crush the cup in his hand out of worry. 

“Just a few months,” Rose said quickly, probably intending to be reassuring. 

Thor’s gut churned. _A few months_ . He’d been in the Void for _months?_ What if Tony or Bruce had tried to get him back his own time and he’d missed it? Would he ever know?

“Nothing else happened,” said Mickey quickly. “We thought you might be dead...” Rose smacked his arm. “But we didn’t know for sure!”

It hadn’t felt like months. There’d been no concept of time, really, no way to tell, but it had been hours— maybe days at most, if he reasoned each Trial had taken place in a new day—but _months?_ And if he _had_ missed his ride back to his own time, what then? Were there now two Thors existing in 2008? 

Rose hesitantly hovered in front of Thor. “I’m sure…I’m sure your mates are all right,” she offered.

“Maybe,” Thor replied. 

He had no idea—no idea when they’d been thrown in time, no idea if he would ever properly see them again. He had no idea how to proceed, or if the timeline was at risk by his presence here and now. Did he attempt to return to Asgard or contact Fury, here and now? Or did he have to wait until Lazarus’ bomb went off in 2013 to _then_ get in contact with Fury?

Thor pressed his palm to his forehead, a headache beginning to brew. He’d been foolish to think simply getting out of the Void would resolve anything. It’d saved him from non-existence, to be sure, but his situation remained...troublesome. 

“Maybe we could put him back ourselves,” Mickey suggested quickly. “We came back here to find out what happened to them anyways, and now we know what happened to Thor, at least. We’re all done with the Meks _and_ the Silurians _and_ the Argolins.”

Rose sighed, casting a frown at the boxes piled up on the work tables. “We _were_ packing up anyways. We could drop you off on our way.”

“Milady…” Hope bubbled in Thor’s chest. 

“We need to get back to 2013 ourselves,” she finished, and patted his shoulder. 

“Besides, now that we have you back, we could help with your case—figure out what happened to the rest of the missing superheroes,” said Mickey. He plopped down in front of one of the computers and began typing rapidly. “This way, we can—”

“Oy, give him a minute,” Rose snapped. “Can’t you see he’s exhausted?” She shot Thor an apologetic smile, which immediately changed to a worried expression. “Oh, _Thor_ —”

A series of beeps sounded from Mickey’s computer. 

“What now?” he yelled, and his eyes went wide. “Rose!”

“What is it?” Thor hopped to his feet, but Rose kept staring at him in surprise, and then Mickey was, too. Thor checked his arm, panicked the blackness had overtaken him when he wasn’t looking, and though his hand was still black and numb, it had not crept back up his arm. 

“Should I do something?” Mickey asked, frantically stabbing at computer keys as the beeping increased. 

“I, um…” Rose looked like she couldn’t decide what to say. For some reason, she squinted at Thor, shielding her eyes, and then Mickey did the same. 

Thor’s heart thumped up into his throat and Rose backed up another few steps away. Something was wrong, something was terribly wrong, and he couldn’t help thinking he was _still in the Void_ and he’d never left, and maybe this was another part of the Trial after all, somehow— 

He inhaled and cold air rushed over him. Rose and Mickey and Torchwood vanished in a rush of white light.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate chapter title: Maximum Angst.

* * *

**[ BRUCE ]**

_“If you succeed tonight, more than one innocent life may be spared. Three turns should do it, I think.”  
–Dumbledore, Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban _

* * *

The following day, the medical center was clear of remaining debris. Reinforcements had been flown in from Portland, and Bruce had learned that Etta was alive—she had been taken to the hospital for surgery on her arm.

There was also a death toll of nine agents.

“You’re lucky,” Dr. Hess said as she gently changed the bandages on Bruce’s hands, later that evening. “After the stunt you pulled, you should probably be dead, too. At least have a lot more broken bones—you’ve got a couple fractured tibias, bruised ribs, burns and scrapes…that isn’t so bad. Well, and all that pesky shrapnel, but we took care of that.”

She shot him an easy smile.

“It wasn’t a ‘stunt,’” Bruce said quietly. He felt about the farthest thing from lucky and was in no mood for conversation. 

_Nine dead._

“All right, ‘stunt’ may be harsh, but, it also wasn’t an overly thought-out plan, was it?” When he didn’t reply, she continued, “I heard it helped, though—Agent Jones told me they were trying to get behind the trees and use them against Avalanche.”

Bruce didn’t reply. Maybe he had helped, but it certainly hadn’t been enough—people had still died. He swallowed. _Fury_ had died. If the Other Guy had woken up, he could’ve stopped the fight so much sooner. He could’ve saved the machine, saved those lives.

But he hadn’t. Hulk had stayed in his damn coma and had let it all happen—he had left Bruce vulnerable, and almost dead himself. 

“Avalanche avoids organic material because his waves reflect back on him and do damage to himself,” Dr. Hess went on, oblivious or ignoring Bruce’s silence, he wasn’t sure. “That’s why he was avoiding the trees, you know. But when you threw that grenade at him, he put his hands up and sent you flying, but sent his own waves against the trees and reflecting back. Agents Jones said he went down easy after that.”

She eyed Bruce as she stood to adjust morphine drip beside him, then let out an exhausted sigh.

“I’m just trying to say that you _did_ make a difference, Bruce. I’m trying to give you some good news.” Dr. Hess touched his shoulder. “Try to remember that you helped. If there’s anything I’ve learned since joining S.H.I.E.L.D., it’s that some days, that’s the best you can hold on to, even when the chips are down.”

Bruce nodded to acknowledge her.

 _Nine dead._

He had wanted to be normal? Well, this was it: him, powerless. 

He couldn’t curl onto his side, so he simply closed his eyes, letting the morphine wash through him and numb the pain. 

~

For a couple days, things blurred together. Bruce was given a cast for his legs, frequent bandage changes for the burns on his arms, and painkillers to manage it all. Jane came to visit to let him know that Etta was okay and recovering from her surgery, one ward over. 

Later, she told him that repairs on the lab were going fast and that the shipment of iridium had arrived. The mirror was missing, but she suspected it was in the conference room they’d used for research, which was currently blocked by a caved-in hallway.

“When you’re feeling up to it, we can...try again,” Jane said, but her voice was still etched with so much sadness and exhaustion, Bruce had a hard time believing her.

Bruce himself hardly said two words. He kept thinking about Tony’s last words to him, and the fact that the machine was in shambles. He couldn’t help feeling that his team was forever lost and it was all his fault. 

Tony was surely dead at this point—along with Thor, Fury, Agent Thomas, and seven other agents rounding out the list of people Bruce had failed. For all he knew, Steve, Clint, and Natasha were gone too—without the mirror, he had no way of knowing, though he was back to bitterly assuming the worst.

Eventually, he was released from the medical center; his room was blissfully dark and quiet after the constant bustle and hum of the overfull medical center. A nurse set out crutches and painkillers for him, promising to check in to change his bandages. 

Bruce sunk into his pillow and let time roll on without his participation.

~

When his food went untouched for the second day in a row despite urging from the nurse, Rebecca, Dr. Hess decided to send in the big guns. Bruce had his back to the door and didn’t reply to the tentative knock, nor the soft greeting from Rebecca.

“Bruce?” Rebecca tried again. “You have a visitor?”

He assumed it was Jane and he didn’t feel like talking, or hearing anyone’s forced, empty cheerfulness. He tucked his hands a little tighter to his chest.

“Bruce?” Etta’s voice came next, and an ache shot through Bruce that had nothing to do with his injuries. He’d been so worried, and he’d missed her, but hadn’t realized just how much of either until her voice brought on such a flood of relief that it threatened to bring him to tears. 

He began the laborious process of turning onto his back, but Etta quickly told him to stay still.

“I’ll come to you,” she said, coming around the side of his bed. She limped a little, and her arm was in a futuristic-looking, metallic cast. Rebecca grabbed the chair from the corner of the room and brought it close for Etta to sit in. 

Behind him, Rebecca flipped on the bedside lamp. “I’ll be back in a bit,” she said, and the door closed with a click.

A few lingering bruises on Etta’s face had faded to yellow and gray blotches, but when she smiled, he was pretty sure it was one of the nicest things he’d seen in a long time. For a few seconds, she looked him up and down, then at the tray of untouched food on the TV tray behind him. She sighed.

“Bruce Banner, why the fuck did you do that?”

Her casual tone startled a bark of laughter from him, though his bruised body protested immediately.

“Sorry,” Etta winced. 

“I needed to do something,” he said when the pain eased off. “I...I needed to try. And I thought, if I...if I was really in danger, for real...then...maybe...”

“Then maybe the Hulk would finally wake up,” Etta finished softly.

“Yeah, and um, as you can see, it worked perfectly.” He didn’t bother to hide the sharpness in his tone. “Nine people died, and I’m probably going to be stuck here after all.”

Etta drew her eyebrows together. “Bruce, you can—we’re going to rebuild. You and Jane have to start again, but it’s not from scratch. You still have you research and notes, and the iridium arrived yesterday. It’s all waiting for you and Dr. Foster, so—”

“What the hell use is any of it if my team is dead?” Bruce cut in, quiet and cold. 

“Bruce, you don’t know—”

“Don’t I?” Bruce snapped. “The last time I talked to Tony, he was about to go into a, uh, a damn _duel_.”

“Which he might’ve won.”

“Thor’s gone, and for all I know, so are the rest. Even if—even if they’re not right now, by the time we can rebuild and I can...I can so much as _stand up_ …” Bruce shook his head. “What’s the point?”

The bitter, dark thoughts he’d been wrapped up in the past several days were coiled around every part of him. Etta’s sunshine smile had warmed him for a moment, but it wasn’t enough to drag him out of the reality of the situation. 

“You can’t lose hope _now_ ,” said Etta. 

“Whatever I did—whatever I do, it’s not enough.” Bruce frowned. _It’s never enough._

Everyone kept telling him he could only do so much, but he was _supposed_ to be able to do more. That was the whole point. As much as he resented the Other Guy and struggled to co-exist with him, it was clear they needed each other—or at least, Bruce needed the Hulk. He couldn’t protect the people he cared about without him. 

He wasn’t an Avenger without him. 

“Bruce, of _course_ you’re enough,” Etta assured. “You’re acting like everything is over. But, nothing is over— _this_ is not over. We can still fix it.”

He didn’t answer. There was no point explaining. No point in anything. 

“Bruce?” When he remained silent and brooding for several long minutes, she finally sighed and stood. “At least eat something. Come on, Dr. Hess is worried.” 

He let her leave without a reply, guilty that he’d been so sour but wishing only that this nightmare would end. 

~

Etta came back the next day, this time with Rebecca and a couple other agents in tow. Bruce was facing the door when she asked his permission to enter, and then Etta pointed to the wheelchair beside his bed.

“If it’s okay, she’s going to get you into some clean clothes and then these guys are going to help you out of this room.”

Bruce eyed them. “Why?”

“Because you stink, Banner,” Etta teased. “And then we’re going on a field trip.” 

“What time is it?” He was moderately certain it was early morning, but he didn’t have a clock nearby and had barely noticed lately where one day ended and another started.

“Are you going to come?” Etta raised an eyebrow at him.

Bruce grunted. “Do I have a choice?” He glared at Rebecca and the agents, but he gestured for them to come inside anyways.

“You do not,” said Etta. 

She remained vague as he was wheeled down corridors in various states of repair. At first he thought she was taking him in a roundabout way to the lab, until they came to the freshly restored elevator. 

“Where are we going?” Bruce tried again, peering up at Etta. 

“You’ll see.”

The elevator opened onto a small hangar bay. Situated in the middle was a Quinjet, ramp down, looking suspiciously ready for take off. Bruce rubbed his palms against his eyes.

“Whatever this is, I _really_ don’t feel, um, up to it.” He sighed. 

“I know,” Etta replied over her shoulder, leading the way up the ramp. 

“Are we...are we even allowed to leave the base?” said Bruce, as the agents helped secure his wheelchair.

“Of course we are.” Etta took a seat opposite him and buckled in. To the S.H.I.E.L.D. pilot sitting up front, she called, “We’re in!”

“ _Should_ we?” He was still injured, after all.

“We’re not going to be gone very long.” 

The engines revved as the ramp closed with a hydraulic hiss. Bruce watched Etta for more clues, but she simply smiled at him. He shook his head and looked away from her. He shouldn’t have let her get him out of his bed. 

“Try to relax, Bruce,” said Etta over the roar of take off. “And try not to be _completely_ miserable.”

“No promises,” he grunted, though he doubted she heard him over the thrum of the jet. 

Bruce let his mind drift, and with the white noise of the jet enveloping him, he almost dozed off. In what felt like a very short amount of time indeed, the jet tipped down and headed in for a landing. He didn’t bother to ask where they were, knowing she wasn’t going to answer. 

“We’re clear,” the pilot announced when the jet had come to a full stop on the ground. He climbed out of his seat to help Etta unfasten Bruce’s wheelchair. “You have time, but keep your head up and comms on.”

“Got it,” said Etta. She hit the controls by the door to lower the ramp.

Bruce couldn’t quite make out where they were, only that it was dark, a bit foggy, and rainy lightly. He hadn’t brought a coat, only the sweatshirt he’d been dressed in, so he hoped it wasn’t too cold. Etta wheeled him down the ramp and out into the open, at the edge of a large green field.

No, not a field. A cemetery.

A long strip of fresh-cut grass led up to an expanse of sidewalks, winding around stone monoliths. Headstones dotted the space off to the right and left of the monoliths. The path Etta had started them on led straight past it all to a large, marble mausoleum. 

Bruce grabbed the brakes on his wheelchair, causing Etta to stumble against his back. 

“Bruce—”

“ _What_ the hell is this?” he demanded. “Where are we?”

“Will you please trust me?” When he didn’t let go, Etta sighed. “You asked me yesterday what the point is. I’m answering that now—let me show you.”

Bruce frowned. He was pretty sure there was nothing that would be helpful to his current state, let alone in a place like this. He also doubted he could feel a whole lot worse, so he released the brakes and let her wheel him down the path to the mausoleum. 

As they drew nearer, Bruce could see that people had vandalized it heavily. The marble was covered in writing. It would’ve given the impression that the thing was ancient and abandoned, had the entryway not been peppered with bouquets of flowers. 

Something more recent, then? He almost grabbed the brakes again, thinking this was related to Fury and the other dead agents, but then he realized the writing wasn’t simply graffiti. There were hearts, peace signs, large letters of love and support, and mournful messages of grief and loss, and…

_We miss you_

_Where have you gone?_

_save me_

_I HEART THOR_

_Rest In Peace Avengers_

Bruce froze. 

Etta brought him to the entrance but didn’t wheel him in the open archway immediately. His eyes darted from message to message, years worth, scrawled over and over, dozens of layers, in paint and ink and anger and hope. 

_WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I NEEDED YOU_

_come back_

_I still believe in Iron Man..._

His heart thumped against his ribs and he could barely process them all.

“What is this?” he whispered. He knew. He knew, but he needed to hear her say it. 

“This is for you,” she answered. “For all of you.”

She slowly pushed him inside. The interior was large and round, lit at the top with warm light that filled the space. In the middle of the room was a platform—a memorial.

In the center was Thor’s hammer, looking like it’d punched into a little pile of twisted steel. To the right of it stood Cap’s shield beside a bow leaning against a quiver of arrows. On display on the end was a set of black gauntlets. To the right of the hammer was another display, this one featuring an Iron Man helmet and an oversized beaker made of metal that looked like it had been dented in by a fist.

“All fake, metal replicas, of course,” said Etta quietly, coming to stand beside him. “The real hammer is in East Williamsburg. S.H.I.E.L.D. built a secure outpost around it, since it couldn’t be moved.”

Bruce swallowed. _East Williamsburg._ “That’s where Lazarus—that’s where the bomb went off.”

“People kept leaving flowers and letters at the outpost, so S.H.I.E.L.D. built this memorial here, in Prospect Park.” Etta glanced over her shoulder. “Those monoliths are for the people lost when Staten Island went down.”

A wave of aching loss and homesickness flooded over Bruce as he stared at each item. His vision blurred and he blinked back the tears. In that moment, he wanted more than anything to be back at the Tower—to walk into the common room and settle down with a good book, only to be interrupted by Tony wanting to drag him to the lab, or Clint announcing he was hungry, and Thor breaking out snacks, then Natasha stealing them, and Steve corralling them into a movie night so he could continue catching up on things he missed…

The ache was so palpable, so deep, he touched his hand to his chest, half-expecting to find it’d been sliced open. _I want my family back._

“You asked me what was the point of all this,” said Etta. She stepped in front of him and gestured to the memorial, to the plaque at the bottom, noting their names and the day they were lost. “This is the point, Bruce. This is what you’re fighting for.”

He swiped his hand over his eyes. “But what if they’re all gone, Etta?”

“What if they’re not?” Etta crouched down in front of him. “You said yourself, time doesn’t move in a straight line. And what you’re trying to do is fold time around, putting it back to 2013, right? So what if when you do that, it reverses whatever happened in between?”

“I don’t, um...I don’t think it works like that,” said Bruce. He and Jane had theories, but of course, they couldn’t know for sure...

“Why not?” 

“Because...this isn’t a time travel movie, Etta.” Bruce looked past her at the memorial. If only it could be, then he _could_ get them all back, and everything would be okay. He could be with his family again. 

“Is there any chance at all that it could work like that?” Etta pressed. 

Bruce shrugged. “I...maybe, I guess. But the chance of it is, um, well, really damn small…”

“Then there’s hope.” Etta smiled. “‘Damn small’ still counts.”

“Etta,” Bruce sighed. “I appreciate this, I do, but…”

“I know.” 

She moved out of his way and waited another few minutes as Bruce took in the memorial, studying every detail of the replicas. They were good, close enough to the real thing to make his heart hurt, but just wrong enough to remind him they weren’t the originals. 

Behind him, Etta murmured into her earpiece, then gently touched his shoulder. “Bruce? Sorry, but sounds like there’s an evolving situation with Nitro in Queens, so we better get out of here in case he decides to move on to Brooklyn.”

He nodded. Another supervillain, another attack. 

_The same thing that always happens, Bruce,_ Jane had said, back in the medical center. _Attacks and death and destruction._

Bruce buried his face in his hands as Etta took him back to the waiting Quinjet. 

It wasn’t until after they’d landed back in Boston, and Bruce had settled back in his bed, that he finally had a moment to be truly alone. That was when he noticed the mirror—safe and sound, and sitting on his nightstand, with a sticky note from Jane that read, _Found it safe and sound! Here you go_ — _just in case._

He thought about the memorial—he couldn’t _stop_ thinking about the memorial. Could he really reverse time? Prevent all this? Of course, that had been the goal all along, but everything was so damn dark now, he couldn’t see a way out anymore. Even if they rebuilt, even if they somehow got enough energy and enough iridium, even if it worked on the _first try_...was anyone left to bring home?

Bruce reached for the mirror with trembling fingers. He didn’t have the strength to use it and he didn’t have any real hope at this point. But stuck in his bed in his room, he didn’t have anything else to do. 

And he needed to stop thinking about the memorial for at least a minute.

He took a deep breath. “Mirror, can you please show me Clint Barton?”

Bruce waited, and when the screen settled into darkness, Bruce’s shoulders sagged. _I knew it_. But then he realized it wasn’t pure black—there was a faded shaft of moonlight, and the faintest outlines of something Bruce couldn’t make out. 

His heart sped up. “Clint…? Clint—are you there?” 

There was a muffled moan. _Oh God, is he dead too? Fuck, I knew it—_

“Clint?”

There was movement in the frame, and Bruce almost let go of the mirror in relief. It was a bedroom, Bruce realized, and Clint hopped out of bed, tripping and stumbling until his face came close and in focus. 

“Holy shit, Bruce!” He squinted at Bruce like he was too bright to look.

“Sorry, I—I didn’t mean to wake you, but um…” Bruce thought he might crumble to pieces then and there. It was so _damn_ good to see such a familiar face, whole and safe. He tried to blink away the tears that welled up and stung his eyes. 

“No, no, no, it’s fine—where—what…Bruce, what _happened?_ ” Clint looked him over with alarm. 

Bruce couldn’t remember the last time he showered or shaved—how many days had it been since the attack?

“I...don’t, um…” He pressed his lips together. 

There was so much he wanted to spill out, like it was a night in Insomniac Tower and they’d had too much to drink. He wanted to unload fears and doubts without judgement, and tell Clint about the Avengers memorial, about Avalanche and all the attacks in this timeframe, about Etta and Jane, the machine, and he needed hope, something, _anything_ to hold to, and he needed... 

But he only would have what the mirror would give him. A dull throbbing pulsed at the base of his neck.

“Just tell me what you can,” said Clint quickly. “Who did this to you? Where— _when_ are you? Have you talked to the others? Are they with you?”

“I think...I think Tony’s dead,” Bruce said, his voice cracking. “And maybe Thor, too—I don’t know. It might...it might just be, um…”

 _It might be just you,_ Bruce held back. Maybe Steve and Nat were okay, but Bruce’s capacity for hope and optimism was at an all-time low. 

“Bruce, Bruce, _focus_ ,” Clint prompted. “Talk to me.”

Maybe it was worthless to even be talking to Clint. If he and Jane couldn’t rebuild the machine, it was all for naught. He didn’t have the words to say, _You might be stuck there forever_.

The image in the mirror wobbled and Bruce gripped the frame. 

“Look,” said Clint. “I don’t know what kind of hell you’re going through on your end, but you gotta hang in there. You can do this.”

Bruce thought of Fury—gone in a blink, and the eight other agents who were killed, the dozens of others who were injured. He thought about the broken machine and his broken legs, his burnt arms and he thought about Tony and Thor and the words scrawled across every inch of the memorial.

“What if I can’t?” Bruce mumbled, blinking back a fresh wave of hot tears. 

Clint looked Bruce right in the eye, and his voice was calm and steady—grounding. Real.

“You can, Bruce. Whatever it is. You are one of the smartest people on the planet. You’re the guy who tells Tony not to do something because it’ll probably explode. Granted, he usually does it anyways, and it _does_ blow up half the lab sometimes, but that’s beside the point. You can do this.”

Bruce’s lips twitched up a little. That was true, he supposed, although he still didn’t feel like the smartest guy in the room—he felt like a messed-up failure.

“You don’t need the Other Guy to be part of the team, you know that,” Clint went on. “We need _you_ —and you don’t have to be telling Tony not to blow stuff up to be the smartest guy on any planet. Hell, I could probably do that, if I really tried. But I can’t do what you can do.” 

Something about Clint’s voice sunk through Bruce’s haze of negativity. He didn’t exactly believe his friend, but it was a lifeline to a drowning man. The determination in Clint’s eyes was the same kind that Bruce had seen on past missions that Bruce himself had deemed impossible. Clint had not given up—he never did, and he wasn’t giving up now, either. 

“Look, all I’m saying is...we need you, man. You’re the _only_ one who can get us back together. I have no idea what happened to the rest of them, but even if it is just me right now, _I_ need you, Bruce.”

The throbbing in Bruce’s skull grew more intense and insistent, snaking towards his temples. He squeezed the mirror’s edges, struggling to keep his focus a little bit longer.

“You hear me?” Clint pressed. “ _I need you_ —Howard’s gonna try, but you probably have better tech. 1946 has been a slice, but it’s not my home, and wherever you are isn’t yours, either. We’re Avengers, remember? We’re a team, we’re a mess, and we belong—”

The pain spiked behind Bruce’s eyes and he had to let the mirror drop to his lap. 

_Together_ , Clint had probably meant to finish, and it rang through Bruce. _Together, together, together…_

Bruce fumbled for the balm Etta had given him and quickly spread it over his temples and forehead, taking deep breaths. After a few minutes, the ferocity of the ache ebbed.

 _Even if it is just me right now,_ I _need you, Bruce_. _Even if it is just me_. 

If Bruce quit, then he would fail Clint, too. Even if he had already failed all the others, there was still at least one person counting him. Maybe Steve and Nat were okay, too. Maybe.

If roles were reversed, Clint would have never stopped fighting. None of them would have, and if Bruce was an Avenger— _just Bruce_ , not the Other Guy, not the dual entity, not the rage machine, but _Bruce_ —then he could not, and would not stop fighting either.

_This is the point, Bruce. This is what you’re fighting for._

He got himself back into the wheelchair with a moderate amount of grunting, groaning, cursing, and sweating. Eventually, he got himself to the door and out into the corridor.

 _Together_.

Something like a fire—like hope—flickered in his chest. _Are you an Avenger or aren’t you, Banner?_ He thought. 

When he rolled into the lab, the base of The Machine 2.0 had already been reconstructed by Jane. She was cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by parts, and she moved gingerly, favoring her arm. She glanced up at the door in surprise.

“Oh!”

Bruce wanted to apologize, wanted to explain, wanted to say about fifty different things, but none of the right words would form on his tongue. So he settled for a crooked little smile, and said, 

“Um, so, I guess we have work to do?”


	15. Chapter 15

* * *

**[ BRUCE ]**

_“What did I tell you? 88 miles per hour! The temporal displacement occurred exactly 1:20 a.m. and zero seconds!” – Doc Brown, Back to the Future_

* * *

It took a few days, but Jane and Etta were right: rebuilding was a hell of a lot faster than building from scratch. Bruce had stopped bothering to track the days in his notebook, since he didn’t really know what day he was on. It didn’t matter anymore, anyway.

All that mattered was the machine. 

Etta came into the lab looking overly grim. 

“What is it?” Bruce asked. 

“How fast do you think we can make this all work?” she replied, casting a worried look at their progress so far. 

Bruce eyed her. “Etta, what _is_ it?”

She frowned. “There’s just a lot of...activity in the city right now.” She avoided his questioning stare at first but when he didn’t look away, she added uneasily, “Nitro has been sighted in Boston. And we know he has a longstanding grudge with S.H.I.E.L.D., so the sooner we can get you two finished and out of here, the better.”

“Right,” Bruce replied, tendrils of dread swirling in his gut. He tried to push the thought from his mind and joined Jane in reattaching some copper panels to the machine.

~

  
  


Bruce managed to get a hold of Steve, and, though he was relieved to find him alive, it was also in a situation that was not at all reassuring. 

From the moment Bruce connected, police sirens blared. He realized he had the view of a rearview mirror in a car, complete with Steve driving, and the source of the sirens directly behind the car.

“Steve!” 

The scenery out the back and side windows lurched and Steve cursed.

“Steve, what—” 

_Oh God, please don’t tell me Captain America robbed a bank or something._

“Little busy at the moment, Banner! Trying to save a kid’s life!”

“Wait—”

Bruce tried to get in a full question but was drowned out by the scream of brakes as Steve’s car careened to a stop. Whose car? Who was in danger? What the hell was happening?

“Good to hear from you, finally,” said Steve. “But this had better not be the call to tell me you’re bringing me home right this second. You gotta give me ten more minutes.”

Bruce shook his head. “Time doesn’t, um—wait, Steve—is that a siren?”

“Bruce, I gotta go—don’t pull me home yet!”

“Steve—!”

Bruce couldn’t see where Steve had disappeared to, but he did see a police officer haul his vehicle to a stop, leap out of his car, and take off shouting. Bruce let go of the mirror and Etta’s eyebrows were high with surprise when he looked up. 

“Did you say ‘Steve’ and ‘siren?’ As in _police_?” She asked. 

“Yeah, um, they seem to be...after him?”

Etta stared. “If Captain America is getting arrested, something has gone seriously wrong.” 

He exhaled and shoved the mirror away. “No kidding.” 

Despite Steve’s request, Bruce hurried back to his spread of wires and charts and panels. Jane and Etta copied his sense of urgency, and they worked late into the night, on to the next morning. Etta was tight-lipped about further supervillain sightings, but every time she was pulled away for some meeting or check-in, she came back looking more and more worried. 

After a few days straight, the three of them only stopped for a longer break after Etta had a stomach ache from too much Red Bull, and Jane reported she was pretty sure she could hear colors. Bruce’s eyes were like dusty sandpaper and he didn’t want to stop, but recognized he was growing progressively more useless with little to no sleep. 

Back in his room, despite his exhaustion, Bruce held the mirror tight.

“Please,” he begged. “ _Please_. Show me a sign—please, show me Asgard.”

The mirror surface shimmered, warping his reflection. Bruce held his breath. The image twisted, melted, turned, but didn’t quite disappear. 

“ _Please_ ,” he said through clenched teeth, willing every cell of his body to see something, to hear something. “I need your help—if I even have a chance at saving Thor, I need your help. _Show me Asgard._ ”

Every time he tried to get through to Asgard, he got the same result. They were out of ideas to create enough energy to power the machine—Bruce could only nurse his fragile spark of hope so long before it burned out again. He relaxed his grip on the mirror, his breath seeping out of him, slow and resigned. 

Then— 

Golden eyes came into view. A golden helmet. It hurt to look right at the image, but Bruce couldn’t look away.

“Why do you continue to seek what may not be found, wanderer?” came a booming voice, deep and ancient—the kind that commanded oceans and galaxies, layered with rich chocolate and ferocious lightning, with the roar of a hurricane and the softness of a butterfly’s wing. 

Bruce shivered. 

“I’m—sir—” Was he a deity? How did one address a deity? “Thor,” he blurted. “Friend of Thor.”

The handsome, dark face frowned. “You are.” 

Bruce couldn’t tell if it was a question or an agreement. He was too nervous to ask, suddenly too scattered to figure out what he was doing in the first place. 

“Um,” he said. “I...we...I need help?”

The deity, or whatever he was, seemed to search him, to peer into his soul, and beyond. He was looking at Bruce and not at Bruce at all, and Bruce himself sat frozen, confused, in awe, anxious. And then, the deity was warmer somehow. The light was less harsh, and the thunder racing over Bruce’s bones receded to a calming, far away rumble.

“You are,” the deity repeated. “Of course. Dr. Bruce Banner.” When he smiled, Bruce’s anxiety melted away with the thunder. “I see you, now.”

“Yes,” said Bruce, as an exhale. 

“I am Heimdall. Thor spoke of you and the other Avengers.”

_Heimdall_ — _of course._ The Asgardian gatekeeper. The team hadn’t met him, though Thor promised that one day they would all go to Asgard to meet his family and friends back there. He spoke of Heimdall, Sif, and the Warriors Three often enough that Bruce almost felt as though he knew them. He had, however, never pictured an ancient being quite _this_ incredible when picturing Thor’s best friend. 

“Is he...there?” It felt childish to ask, but Bruce didn’t know what else to say. 

Heimdall shook his mighty head. “Thor has been lost a long time, I know not where. Some years ago, I could see him in a place he did not belong, but then...”

Bruce swallowed. “There was a bomb.”

“Yes… Then chaos, and creatures. After that, he fell out of my sight. There are very few places my sight cannot penetrate.” 

That was concerning, but since Bruce had not been able to contact Thor even once, it was also unsurprising. 

For a moment, Hemidall’s eyes seemed to be looking very far away, past Bruce. There’d always been an _otherworldly_ feeling that emanated off Thor—though at least with him, Bruce was used to it by now—and certainly Loki, too. But Heimdall was something else entirely. Bruce shivered again when that golden gaze refocused on him.

“I see the place you are in, Doctor, and it is not supposed to be. You are not supposed to be there.”

“I’m...I’m trying to fix that. The reason I was trying to contact Asgard, Heimdall...sir…” Thor’s friend or not, Bruce still didn’t know how to address him. “We, um—we can’t make our machine work without the right—we need the right energy.”

Heimdall watched him sternly. “You seek the Tesseract.”

“Um. Yeah.” 

It was the longest of long shots—the Tesseract had allowed Loki to create mass destruction on Earth, and the chances that the Asgardians would be open to letting the humans touch it ever again was next to zero. But Bruce had no other cards left to play. 

Heimdall frowned, and Bruce wasn’t sure whether it was thoughtful or unhappy. Probably both. 

“The nine realms are in chaos,” he eventually said, sighing wearily. “Asgard is fighting too many wars at once, as is Midgard. The balance has been upended and I do not know that it can be restored.”

“But if we can change, um, time? If the machine works—we can change time, back to what it’s supposed to be.” Bruce waited as Heimdall considered him. His eyes did the thing again. 

“Time cannot be changed, Doctor,” Heimdall finally said, and his voice was a steady, ocean wave. “But it can be _turned._ ”

Bruce waited for more clarification, but none came. “Okay?”

“If you could succeed in turning time, there is a chance the balance can be restored.” Heimdall nodded. “I will speak to our queen. Have hope, Dr. Banner—you and Jane Foster are more than equal to the task.”

Bruce blinked. Had he mentioned Jane? _Right_ — _all-seeing, all-knowing Asgardian._

When Heimdall was gone, Bruce set the mirror aside and slid down into his pillows. It was only then that he realized he didn’t have a headache from using the mirror. Maybe it was because he had been contacting someone in the same time as him? Or maybe some sort of magic had extended from Heimdall to facilitate the conversation?

If they got the Tesseract, they would be able to use the machine for sure and sooner rather than later. Bruce could go home. He wouldn’t have the chance to be “normal”, he’d never find out what he and Etta could have been. A dull pang of sadness bumped his chest.

_I don’t every time get what I want._

But he’d be home. He’d have his team, his _family_ back—why it took being ripped through the space-time continuum to realize they meant more to him than anything else, he’d never know. And most important of all, he— _they_ would all have the chance to save the world. _This_ world, Etta and Jane’s world, maybe other worlds, too. They could stop this destructive, hopeless, supervillain-riddled place from coming true. If the machine worked, they’d have the chance to stop the Earth from becoming a haven of pain and destruction. 

If it worked, the Avengers would be restored. And he was one of them.

  
  


~

  
  


When Bruce woke the next morning, he wondered how long it would be before he heard back from Asgard or Heimdall or whoever about the Tesseract. 

He returned to the lab, making final adjustments to the machine with Jane. They were very nearly at the point where they couldn’t continue without an energy source to at least test the thing, when a soft shimmer of golden light flickered in the corner of Bruce’s eye. 

A regal woman in a sweeping, emerald green dress stood in the lab. Bruce startled, Jane yelped, Etta drew her gun and nearly fell out of her chair.

“Hold on,” said Bruce as Etta shouted, “Who are you? Hands up!”

The woman held up one hand and with the other, she spun her fingers in the air. A soft shimmer of gold light rippled around her hand, and then she produced the chamber that Thor had used to transport the cube back to Asgard. Complete with the Tesseract still inside.

She looked straight at Bruce. 

“I believe our aid was requested?” Her smile was partly teasing, and she gave off the same hard-to-look-at, incredible, powerful, ancient presence that had emanated from Heimdall. 

Etta glanced at Bruce who nodded, and she lowered her gun with quivering arms. 

“Yeah, um, that was me.” He cleared his throat. “I’m Bruce Banner—Thor’s friend.”

The woman moved gracefully towards him. “I am Frigga, mother of Thor.”

“Thor’s _mom?”_ Jane burst out. “Sorry, I just— _wow_.” 

“Jane Foster?” Frigga smiled fondly at Jane, who sputtered and blushed. 

“I’m her—me—yes.” Jane saluted, then attempted some sort of awkward curtsy instead. Etta stared between them all with wide eyes, and Bruce bit back a chuckle. 

“Heimdall believes you have the ability to restore balance to the realms, and, more importantly, to bring my son home.” She held the chamber in both hands, considering the Tesseract, then Bruce. “What do you believe, Bruce Banner?”

_No pressure._ Bruce tucked his hands nervously against his chest.

On one hand, they could insert the Tesseract, boot up the machine, wrangle six timelines, pretzel them back together into 2013, and everything would change. This future would no longer exist, the Tesseract would be back in Asgard, never having left. They’d have the chance to rewrite history and hopefully stop this version of Earth from coming to pass.

On the other, he or Jane might’ve miscalculated their equations or messed up in their build or frankly couldn’t actually plan on _how_ to manipulate time. They’d blow up the lab, maybe the whole base, maybe the whole city. They’d fry the space-time continuum and destroy a chunk of the universe and way more than a couple decades of history.

Or about a million variations in between.

_Yeah. No pressure._

Frigga raised her eyebrow at him, ever so slightly, waiting for an answer. 

Bruce untucked his hands to trace his fingers nervously over his knuckles. “I…um, I believe we’re going to _try._ ”

_Yeah. Very confidence-inducing._ Bruce winced. 

Frigga looked from him to Etta, to Jane—whom she offered another warm, fond smile—and back to Bruce. She let out a deep, sad sigh. 

“For what it is worth, I am sorry for what Loki did to your realm, all those years ago. I have lost him, too, albeit in a different way than Thor.” She held out the chamber to Bruce. “If you are able to restore one of my sons, then all may not be lost for the other.”

Bruce gingerly took the chamber from her. 

“And Jane Foster?” Frigga turned, her long dress swirling as she moved.

“Y—yes?”

“Do not give up on him. Not yet.” Frigga smiled at Jane again, who flushed and stammered nothing comprehensible. Thor’s mother tilted her head and seemed to hear something they couldn’t, as then she turned to Etta, and added, “You’re almost out of time.”

She disappeared in a gentle, golden shimmer. Bruce clutched the handles of the chamber, hardly daring to believe it was real, that the longest of long shots had actually _worked_. Jane let out a strangled exhale behind him, and he opened his mouth to ask what Frigga had meant. Then there was a deep rumble somewhere, almost like thunder. 

Bruce’s heart skipped a beat. “What was that?”

Etta dashed out of the lab.

Jane rushed to Bruce’s side. “You heard the woman.” She gestured to the chamber and Bruce handed it over, then wheeled himself to the machine. 

Another rumble sounded, and sweat broke out on Bruce’s forehead. _Avalanche. He’s back. He’s come to finish us off._

“Do you think…” he started, afraid to ask.

“Just keep working,” Jane murmured, but she was as pale as he felt. 

Even if it wasn’t Avalanche, even if it was _Nitro_ or another attack, that meant they really were out of time. They’d have no chance to test the Tesseract. All their work and research supported the idea that things would work out but time was not simple—the machine was not simple, the Tesseract was the farthest possible thing from simple, and even with every precaution and hypothesis and prototype, it was all theoretical and—none of this was simple.

_Boom_.

The noise was much closer this time, enough to rattle the room. Bruce swallowed but his mouth was dry. 

Etta flew back into the lab, the door slamming shut behind her.

“What’s going on?” Bruce called out. He stabbed furiously at the buttons on the panel before him, readying the machine. 

Jane positioned the chamber to open it and let the Tesseract click into place. 

“Keep going,” Etta replied, but she overturned the work table nearest to her and dragged it in front of the door. She jammed at the security lock until it flashed red.

_“Lockdown procedure, engaged,”_ the panel reported. An alarm blared overhead. Faint shouts from other agents sounded outside the door, running past. 

“Etta?” Bruce’s heart bumped against his ribs. And another table, and another roll of thunder. The lights flickered. “Etta!”

“How close are you?” Etta shouted, hauling unused chairs and stools, creating a giant equipment barricade in front of the door. 

“Minutes!” Jane replied. Her hands shook.

“ _Jane_ ,” Bruce hissed, but he didn’t stop working, even though his heartbeat was now climbing between his ears. “Somebody tell me—”

“It’s Nitro,” Etta admitted. 

“He was in Queens,” Bruce said, his voice small. At the memorial site, Etta had said—but of course she’d said he’d been sighted in Boston too, and he had a grudge—

“Now he’s here,” she snapped.

Bruce wanted to ask what Nitro did—what his powers were—but it hardly mattered. Etta’s reaction told him everything he needed to know about how dangerous the villain was. The machine had to work, and it had to work _now_. 

Etta stayed stationed at the door, talking in urgent tones on her comm. Bruce switched from machine’s control console to the dials and buttons on the other panels and back, and Jane flew around the lab affixing the last-minute bits. The Tesseract sat in the middle of its containment unit, spilling out brilliant blue light. Slowly, it began to pulse. 

_BOOM_. 

The noises were close and the walls shuddered with every crash, snatches of gunfire sounding somewhere beyond their lab. He couldn’t work fast enough. Panic pulsed through his veins, and he struggled to tamp it down. He reached for the Other Guy out of habit but didn’t have the seconds to be anxious about Hulk’s continued lack of response. 

“Guys,” Etta said, her tone full of warning. 

“Minutes!” Jane repeated. Her hands shook so bad that she dropped the filament. 

“It needs to be _seconds!”_ said Etta.

_BOOM._ The remaining tables vibrated a few inches out of place, and Bruce felt the rumble up through the wheelchair and in his teeth.

“Oh my God, oh my God…” Jane scrambled to replace the filament. Bruce had never seen her so terrified and his own fear spiked. 

“Jane—” He smacked as many compartments closed as he could reach with one hand, furiously typing into the input panel with the other.

“It’s him, Bruce—this is it. Oh _God.”_ Tears spilled out onto her cheeks. “And you need more time—” She let out a sob. 

“Guys!” Etta shouted. The walls shivered and cracked, the lights faltered and buzzed, ceiling tiles rained down. “Guys, _now! Do it now!”_

Jane slammed the last compartments on her side shut, and whirled around the machine, rushing to Etta’s side. Etta shoved her gun into Jane’s wobbly hands. 

The machine trembled and began to glow, whirring and pulsing. 

_BOOM_. Equipment slid off counters, beakers smashed, tables tipped. The door dented in, Jane let out a screech, and Etta vaulted over fallen furniture to Bruce. 

She grasped his collar. “If this goes right, I’ll never see you again—or have never met you in the first place. Gonna miss you, Banner.” Etta crashed her lips to Bruce’s.

Bruce kissed Etta back. 

The machine thundered and blue and white light filled Bruce’s vision. Etta jumped away and rushed to Jane. Bruce gripped the machine’s console, fingers blindly finding the key that would ignite the Tesseract energy and pull apart the space-time continuum. The door burst in, sending tables and stools smashing through the lab. Jane screamed. 

Bruce turned the key.

His hands were ripped from the console and everything was noise and light, blurred and ice cold and explosions.

_We were wrong. I killed them. We’re dead, we’re all dead._

Silence.

  
  


~

  
  


Bruce’s feet hit the ground and the frigid wind stopped roaring. He wobbled, too dizzy to focus, nausea roiling in his stomach. 

He blinked to clear his vision and the machine was before him—but no, not his machine. This one looked like an upside-down mushroom, bulging with wires and panels, and it was washed in pink light. Thor— _alive_ , not dead, Thor holding his hammer in one hand and staring at his other, and looking as off-kilter as Bruce felt. His eyes jumped up to Bruce’s.

Something stirred in Bruce’s gut, his chest. The Hulk touched Bruce’s mind for the first time in weeks. 

_“Banner did it,”_ he said. _“Home_.” 

And Hulk took over. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The level at which I wanted to have somebody say _“See you in anotha life, brotha!”_ was so high, you have no idea. XD


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY PALS, HERE WE FINALLY ARE. 
> 
> First: if you have not read part 1 and 2, NOW is the time where **SPOILERS ABOUND**. If you're cool with that, by all means, keep reading. But this is your official warning that **this chapter will contain fairly major spoilers for parts 1 and 2**. 
> 
> Second: this is the final chapter, _but_ there will also be en epilogue, wrapping up a few loose ends. This chapter is a bit lengthy, but hopefully many of your questions will be answered. Between this and the epilogue, this is the ending I have promised since I started this whole epic and I hope you enjoy, and I hope the journey was worth it. <3
> 
> Third: If you haven't already listened to Ragna's mix for this fic, do it noooow. ;D [HERE](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26222632)

* * *

_“What I didn’t know at the time was that tomorrow would prove less important than yesterday.” – Claire, Outlander_

* * *

**[ NEW YORK, 2013 ]**

When the dust had settled, the S.H.I.E.L.D. teams had moved in. They found the Avengers, bruised, banged up, shell-shocked but otherwise unharmed, scattered around a giant crater in the ground. 

In the middle of a crater, surrounded by debris that had once formed a house, was a crunched metal cube the size of a large bedroom. The top of the cube had been ripped off like the lid of a tin can. Hulk held the roof in his fist as he grunted and grumbled.

Inside the metal cube, the agents discovered an array of broken and melted machine parts, as well as the body of one Hector Lazarus. 

The Avengers had stopped the bomb.

* * *

**[ TONY ]**

* * *

First, there were trips to S.H.I.E.L.D. medical, and a bunch of debriefings with Fury about what the hell had happened—collectively with Lazarus and with the bomb, individually with each team member’s insane bop through time. Eventually, they were cleared to go to the Tower. 

Well, “cleared” was the polite way of putting it. 

Tony wasn’t exactly feeling up to sharing every detail of his adventure yet, and neither was anyone else, so after they’d laid out the basics—time travel, weeks away, nearly dying a few times—he naturally resorted to complaining loudly about every further briefing. Natasha looked wobbly with exhaustion, Bruce kept tuning out of the conversation, Steve kept asking if they could _please_ just come back later. Fury’s frown got frownier with each interruption and complaint.

Then Thor pretty much threatened damage to Fury’s shiny new conference rooms if they didn’t get to home for some rest immediately—in-depth details could wait. Clint promised they’d be back in a couple days for thorough dissection.

“Fine, go home,” Fury growled, when his apparent tolerance for their exhausted lack of cooperation had reached absolute peak (or valley). “Briefing, day after tomorrow, _first thing.”_ He fixed them each with a classic, steely _Or Else_ glare.

“Aye, aye,” Tony saluted, and Clint more or less hurried them all from the building before Fury changed his mind.

A lump of emotion lodged in Tony’s throat when he stepped back into the Tower. _Home_ . He couldn’t even properly process the idea just yet, even though he was standing inside, walking across the floor, shedding his suit…his _suit_. He was afraid that at any moment he’d wake up on a smelly cot, staring up at the stars, and his medieval misadventures wouldn’t be over. 

He couldn’t decide what to do first: call Pepper (for the _nth_ time—he forgot she was at a conference thing in Tokyo, which meant his two-in-the-afternoon was her three-in-the-morning, but he also didn’t care because he just needed to hear her voice), get a cheeseburger (because, after her voice, that was the first thing he needed when he got out of the cave), or to actually stop and hug each of his team members (even if Natasha tried to punch him).

Tony turned to Bruce, who was looking around the Tower the same way Tony was—like he hadn’t seen it in far too long, like he thought he’d never see it again. For the rest of the world, they went on a mission this morning and came home in the afternoon. For Tony, it’d been a month or more; he didn’t really know how long it was for the rest of them yet. 

Bruce exhaled and glanced at Tony. “We’re back,” he mumbled, and the emotion warring in his eyes was overwhelming. 

Tony swallowed. He wanted to ask what happened—wanted to _tell_ them what had happened to him, really—but he needed time to process as much as they did. So he settled for hugging it out with Bruce, while Clint and Natasha embraced, and Thor clapped Steve’s back. 

“I’m sorry it took so long,” Bruce said into Tony’s shoulder. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Tony promised. Because it really didn’t—not now that all six of them were back where they belonged, in place and time. _Home._

Clint nearly shoved Tony out of the way so he could hug Bruce, and he couldn’t hear what the archer was saying, only that Bruce’s eyes got shiny. Then Thor’s chest filled Tony’s vision and Tony’s bones crushed together, his feet lifted off the ground, and the breath was nearly squeezed out of him.

“Okay, yes, okay, that’s enough hugging,” Tony sputtered, staggering away from Thor, who laughed and proceeded to crush Bruce in an alleged hug next. 

“You okay?” Natasha nudged Tony’s elbow, and she didn’t mean the round of demi-god embraces. She studied him in her Natasha-way.

“Kinda—not really.” Tony shrugged. “You?”

Natasha tilted her head to the side. “Eh. Kinda, not really.” 

Clint cleared his throat loudly. “I know everybody probably needs a minute, but, we cool to just order in and hangout tonight?”

“God yes,” said Steve.

“Square deal,” Tony agreed.

“And nobody has to talk if they don’t want to,” Clint added quickly. “Unless they...want to.”

Bruce tucked his hands against his elbows. “Thanks.”

“Welp, I need to fix something. Literally _something.”_ Tony clapped his hands and made a beeline for the elevator. 

He could feel some mushy stuff coming from a mile away, as much as he was grateful to be with them, as much as he needed them, and his heart hurt with relief that they were all okay, he—yeah. He needed a minute. The rest of the team broke off behind him to their own corners of the Tower. 

For the first time in months—or hours, depending on how you measured—Tony’s world spun onto the correct axis when he walked into the lab. JARVIS greeted him and offered to pull up the projects Tony had last been working on, DUM-E chirped and rolled out of his corner. Something like peace washed through him—he was home. He was okay, and _alive_ , and he was home. 

Well, “okay” was relative.

Tony caught his reflection in one of the monitors. He scrubbed his hand over his face—his beard was normal, his hair short. Bruce had reset them all to the day the bomb went off, and he knew that, logically—Fury had explained repeatedly to them that it was the same day as when they left for the mission. 

It wasn’t like the cave, where he came home with a reactor in his chest, a dislocated shoulder, and months of grime soaked into his skin. No, this time, Tony wasn’t shaggy-haired and malnourished, beaten and bruised. He flexed his hands—clean, unblemished. No sign of the beating he took from Black Peadair, no marks from Myhll and the stocks, no evidence that anything had happened at all. 

It was so _strange_ in it’s normalcy—him, the lab, the Tower. He’d lived for weeks that technically didn’t exist, now. He was normal and unchanged on the outside, but inside… 

He grabbed a wrench off the desk and spun on his heel, thrusting and parrying the tool—just to prove Dommal’s lessons had been real, that his body somehow remembered, that it really had happened to him and wasn’t all some elaborate hallucination. He turned and swung the wrench, imagining it was a sword. It wasn’t exactly muscle memory, but it was close enough.

“Still got it,” he mumbled, giving the wrench a flip.

“Practicing your fencing, sir?” JARVIS chimed in.

“Not since sixth grade, J, you know that.” He sighed. He _did,_ however, kinda want to try his luck against Thor. Maybe even continue his journey to being an epic sword warrior-knight thing.

Since he couldn’t call Pepper, he called Rhodey. 

“Hey man, what’s up?” said Rhodey when he answered the video call.

Tony’s eyes stung, but he blinked quickly, hoping Rhodey couldn’t see the shine over the feed. He cleared his throat before he replied, “Nothing. Nothing much. Just got home from a crazy mission.”

“Everything turn out all right?”

Tony touched his hand to his chest, where the Scotsman’s sword had been aiming. He pictured poor Dommal, leaning against that tree, pale and unmoving. 

“Tony?” Rhodey’s forehead crinkled with concern.

“Yeah.”

Rhodey hesitated. “You okay? You sound a bit...”

Tony’s lips quirked into a half-smile. “You’re not going to believe me.” But he told Rhodey, as best he could, what happened.

When he finished the highlights reel, Rhodey leaned back in his chair. “Well, _shit_ , Tony. Holy... _shit_.”

“Yeah.”

“So…” Rhodey shook his head and couldn’t seem to decide how to react. Tony wouldn’t know either, if roles had been reversed. “Okay, so, other than all the near-dying and the fact that it was the Dark Ages, how was it?”

This was why Rhodey was his best friend. Rather than have to share the gritty details when they were still fresh and raw, strange and stinging, he teased and let Tony play along.

“They touched my food. They handed me things.”

“Oh, Tony,” Rhodey groaned—half sympathetic, half mocking.

“No, I’m serious. Hygiene was _not_ a priority. Have you slept on a hay cot beside a guy who hasn’t showered in, you know, _ever?_ Because now I have.”

“But what about battle? Did you have to like, really get in there? _Game of Thrones_ –style? Were you the laughing stock of a bunch of mighty swordsmen?” Rhodey raised his eyebrows like he was seriously asking, but his mouth twitched with suppressed laughter. 

“Rhodes, did you hear me? _Hygiene._ ” 

Rhodey couldn’t contain his laughter anymore.

Tony stared without blinking and repeated, “ _Hygiene_ , Rhodey. I swear to God—and by the way, I was actually _great_ with a sword.”

“I bet you were.”

“I won a duel. I told you, I _won_ the duel. I am officially a duelling _master_.”

“You said you didn’t even use a sword in the last round!”

They went on the same vein for a good twenty minutes before winding down and Tony promised to call again soon.

“You better—you gotta tell me more about this Dommal kid,” said Rhodey. “Sounds like a good dude.”

Tony swallowed. “Yeah.”

“Hey, Tony—I’m really glad you’re okay.”

Okay was still pretty relative, but Tony said, “Me too.”

* * *

**[ NATASHA ]**

* * *

“Is it weird to...miss someone who may not ever exist?” Natasha traced her finger over the bedspread. 

“They existed to you,” said Clint. 

They’d retreated to his room and curled up on his bed, facing each other, knees touching. Clint went first, with a Cliff’s Notes version of his adventure, and Natasha went next. Somehow, New Australia was as real as the fabric under her fingertips and yet as abstract and intangible as a dream. 

“If we manage to change the path that brought that...world into being, though, then they might never be born, or have a life, or anything.” Natasha frowned. The idea that the world—any world—would never see someone like Garrett or Ophie, Edie or Veer, made her gut twist.

“Maybe. Or maybe they will, just not how you know them,” Clint reasoned. “Maybe they get to grow up in a world that isn’t half-dead and basically _Divergent_.”

What would Garrett be doing, Natasha wondered, if he’d never have to lead a rebellion? Never lose his sister? Never watch the world become divided by abilities and perceived worth? She couldn’t help wishing there was a way she could find out, short of time-travelling again. Or living another, like, two hundred years.

She couldn’t stop picturing her last moments in New Australia—bleeding out on the floor, hearing the Coals raging ever closer, and Garrett, shot and bleeding too…

Clint closed his fingers around hers. He didn’t need to say a word, and Natasha knew what he was telling her anyways. _It’s okay, you’re home now. We have a chance to change it_.

Natasha let out a heavy sigh. “Time travel.”

Clint snorted. “It was a freaking trip, that’s for sure. In more ways than one.”

“How long were you in 1946 before you got punched?” Natasha teased, and Clint groaned into his pillow. “That has to be a record.”

“If a list exists for Top Idiot Things To Do While Time-Travelling, I definitely am at the top of it.” Clint let out another groan, facing Natasha again with a pained expression. “It is literally a miracle I did not destroy the entire history of S.H.I.E.L.D. or Tony Stark or _everything_.”

Natasha nudged his knee with hers. “It wasn’t _that_ bad…”

“I helped solve a case I’d already read in the future—that’s like, Time Travel 101 of Do Not Do, right?”

Natasha blinked and sat up. “Hold on— _hold on_ —”

Clint moaned, sitting up as well. “I know. See, I said it was bad.”

“No, _Clint_ —the case you solved. Oh my God.” Natasha snatched her phone from the nightstand, hastily logging into a secure S.H.I.E.L.D. server so she could search through archive files. “The report on the case…”

“What?” Clint wiggled closer so he could peer at her screen.

“You said you remembered the case because it had to do with the Hydra and Tesseract research, right?” She thumbed through folders of data and folders.

“Yeah…”

“I read those too, when Fury brought Selvig in.” 

_1969,_ _1952, 1943, c’mon, where is it…_ Someday, Fitz promised to make the archives organized and searchable by keywords and tags. But there was inevitably, understandably always something more important to work on than a seventy-year catalogue of digitized S.S.R. and S.H.I.E.L.D. files.

“The one about the guns…because Fury had wanted to look into weapons research, right…” She bit her lip. “There was the whole thing about some of the former Commandos working with the S.S.R and an informant…” 

“That is...more or less what happened,” Clint chuckled. “If you count Peggy pretty much taking charge of the situation and calling in Dugan and Gabe and me. Hey, do you think this basically makes me an honorary Commando?”

 _Ah-hah!_ Natasha flicked open the file and skimmed through the pages of the report. Her pulse raced.

“Clint... Look at the part about the CI.” She shoved her phone at him and his jaw slowly fell open. 

He read aloud, “‘ _A confidential informant was brought into the S.S.R. and was questioned about the ongoing investigation. The informant, known as C.B., provided vital information which led Agent Carter to the warehouse on the night in question.’_ ”

He stared at Natasha. “I’m...C.B. Holy _shit_. But I never—I don’t remember reading it with a name in there.”

Natasha shook her head. “I remembered that there _was_ an informant in the case, but couldn’t remember if there was a name or not. I wanted to see if the report had changed.”

“ _I’m_ C.B.,” Clint repeated. “I changed history after all.”

“That’s the thing, Clint...I don’t think you did.” 

He set her phone down between them. “What do you mean? It’s right there—my initials are in a field report from nineteen-freaking-forty-six. The dates aren’t what I remember reading when I wrote it out for Peggy.”

“But that report always had an informant in it,” said Natasha. 

Clint’s forehead crinkled as he tried to untangle it. Natasha could barely figure it out herself, too. Somehow, she’d read these files, read this incident from the past, and somehow Clint had always been a part of it, even though the bomb had _just_ happened. They’d reversed the bomb, yet Clint’s impact on the past remained.

“So...what happened...happened,” Natasha tried. That was the explanation on _Lost_ , right? It’d been a while since she’d binged it with Clint. “The past was your present even though it already happened in history, but...hadn’t happened for you?”

“It _was_ a Time Turner thing,” Clint mumbled. “I _Prisoner of Azkaban_ -ed myself.”

Natasha chuckled. 

He flopped back onto his pillow. “Aw, _time travel._ ” 

* * *

**[ TONY ]**

* * *

“J, what time is it in Tokyo, now?”

“ _It is nearly four-thirty a.m. in the morning, sir.”_

Tony shrugged. “Close enough. Dial Ms. Potts?” It rang longer than usual before Pepper finally picked up, her greeting an incoherent groan into her cell phone.

“Pep?”

“Tony?” her voice slurred. “What’s going on? It’s…it’s four in the morning here.”

“Sorry, I just…” He exhaled, struggling to rein in emotions. He’d gone so _long_ without her, and after everything… He remembered standing out in the grass, after his first real taste of battle, and the consuming ache that had gnawed on his bones. _Pepper, Pepper, Pepper._

“Did you blow up the lab again?” she asked, still half-asleep, worry bleeding into her voice. 

He smiled and didn’t get a chance to answer before Pepper was huffing out an irritated sigh.

“God, Tony, I _told_ you the last time that you and Bruce were messing around with those chemicals that you needed to be more careful. Did you call the fire department? Am I going to get another angry letter from the insurance guys? If you two would act like the geniuses you are instead of throwing around…” 

As Pepper ranted, Tony simply listened happily until she slowed to a stop. 

“Sorry,” he said. His cheeks tingled from smiling so hard. _Pepper._

“Did you hurt yourself? Is Bruce okay?” 

“No,” he answered. “No, I’m fine—we’re fine. I love you.”

Pepper fell silent, and her words were sharp as a stab when she said, “Wait—Tony, I swear to God, if you’re about to fly a missile into space again or something even more insane and dangerous—”

“No, no, I’m in the Tower—I’m home. Pep, it’s fine. I’m fine.” 

Tony kept grinning. She could probably hear it in his voice and it would worry her all the more, but he couldn’t help it. Her voice filled him up and chased away the icy homesickness that had taken root in his chest for weeks on end. This was real—he was really home. _Home._

“Are you sure?” she pressed.

“I just got home from a mission. I promise, everything’s fine. I—it was a rough one. Bruce got us home, though.” He took a breath but his voice still wobbled when he added, “I missed you.”

Pepper sighed—the warm, affectionate one that meant _this is not really the time but I appreciate it anyway_. “I miss you, too,” she said gently. 

“I’ll see you—when you’re done with the conference.”

“Okay. Good night, Tony. I love you, too.” Her voice edged back towards sleep now that the perceived crisis had passed. 

“Good night. Oh, wait—Pep?”

“Mm?”

“Do you have any distant, _distant_ Scottish relatives?”

She sighed again. “I don’t think so—I don’t know, why?”

“No reason. G’night, Pep.”

“Bye, Tony.”

* * *

**[ CLINT ]**

* * *

Clint wasn’t sure what time it was, only that he’d probably eaten his weight in pizza, Chinese takeout, shawarma, and snacks, and he couldn’t sleep. Though whether that was the heartburn, the experiences of his team still swirling in his brain or the fact that he’d been a part of S.H.I.E.L.D. history without knowing it, he couldn’t be sure. 

He hadn’t been surprised that nobody could choose one place to get food from, nor that in the end they ordered a little bit of everything, nor that they’d eaten a million snacks while waiting for their orders to arrive. The indigestion was real, however, and Clint wandered up to the roof for some fresh air.

He was also not at all surprised to find he wasn’t alone when he got there. Insomniac Tower became a nickname for a reason, after all.

Steve nodded in greeting. “Couldn’t sleep?”

Clint shrugged. “Not usually.” 

He settled onto the bench beside Steve, who passed him a beer from the half-empty six-pack at his feet. When Tony had realized the frequency at which the resident insomniacs—so, all six of them, to varying degrees—frequented the roof at night, he’d gone ahead and installed a long bench and a metal gazebo to shelter it from the rain. And because he was Tony, it also had a Plexiglas enclosure that could be turned on to block out the wind, though tonight the air was still, filled only with the soft white noise of the city below. 

“I get why you fell for her,” said Clint quietly. “She’s absolute dynamite.”

Steve smiled. “Yeah, she was incredible.”

“I’m sorry it was me instead of you.” 

He’d already apologized for it twice to Steve throughout dinner, as they all swapped stories in chaotic, overlapping bits and pieces. Cap looked a little like he’d been punched in the gut every time Clint mentioned his trip to the 40s, and Clint couldn’t help feeling guilty, however irrationally.

“Nothing you could’ve done,” said Steve. “It’s not like any of us had a choice.” He idly sipped his beer. It did nothing for him, but he liked the taste.

“Still. Should’ve been you.” Clint sighed. 

“I don’t know that I would’ve been able to come back from that if it _were_ me,” Steve admitted. “I probably would’ve found a way to stay and that…much as I think I’d want it, I don’t think it’d be right.”

A plane droned in the night sky above them. Clint thought back to late nights with Steve, up talking until dawn, and the sadness and regret that laced Steve’s last memories before the ice. Somehow, that was missing from him now.

“What changed?” Clint wondered, and sipped his beer.

Steve fiddled with the label on his bottle. “I had the chance to stop Lazarus. I saw him—a younger version of him, in the past, before he did any of his horrible crimes. At least the ones we know of. I could’ve gotten out of the car, stopped him, changed his mind, something…but I didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because it meant leaving a kid to the mercies of a crime lord. Grabbing Lazarus meant... _maybe_ a chance to turn things around, or maybe a chance to make it so much worse. Helping that kid was something I could do—could _absolutely_ do, and _that_ was the right thing.” Steve exhaled. “I’d do it again, if it came to it.”

Clint smiled fondly. He didn’t know what he’d do given the same chance—probably ran Lazarus over, damn the consequences, and who knows where they’d all be now. Maybe it was a good thing after all that Cap had been given that dilemma and not him. 

“Fair enough,” said Clint. “But that’s a completely different situation then getting a second chance with the love of your life.”

“But it also wouldn’t have been the right thing.” Steve crumpled the beer label into a little paper ball and flicked it into the gravel at their feet. “Because...I belong here, now. Staying behind in that time...it’s not right, anymore. It wouldn’t be the right choice to make. I’m not saying I believe in destiny, but...I think I do belong here, now.”

And dammit, Clint wasn’t one to get mushy, but it was pretty hard not to when Captain America had a tear in his eye too. He cleared his throat and looked away for a good minute so they could both compose themselves.

“Well, shit,” Clint murmured. 

Steve let out another long sigh. “I can’t believe it took a mad scientist throwing me into the 70s to make me figure out I have moved forward, but...here we are.”

Clint held up his bottle. “Here we are.” 

Steve clinked his bottle against Clint’s and they both took a long drink. 

“So,” said Clint. “Did I mention Peggy punched me when we first met?”

Steve choked on his beer. “You conveniently left that out—what did you _do?”_

And as Clint recounted his first meeting with Peggy in greater detail, the ensuing punch by Dugan, Clint’s arrest, and his first interrogation with Phillips, Steve laughed hard and long, clutching a hand to his chest and nearly falling off the bench. It was good to hear him laugh. 

* * *

**[ THOR ]**

* * *

The day of the S.H.I.E.L.D. debriefing, the glorious smell of baking drew Thor to the kitchen early. He was not surprised to find Bruce there, with three different kinds of bread in various stages of completion. 

“Morning,” Thor greeted, already eyeing the fresh loaf on the counter by the oven. 

“Morning.” Bruce chuckled as he kneaded a batch of dough. “Go ahead.”

Thor grinned, cutting into the warm sourdough with relish. 

“I have missed this, Banner,” he said, settling onto one of the stools. He had to restrain himself from polishing off the entire thing—something Darcy had once informed him was actually rather impolite to do. 

“Me too,” Bruce replied. 

Thor had meant Bruce’s baking, but the wistfulness in his friend’s reply made him smile warmly all the same. Thor _had_ missed everything—being in the Tower, being near his teammates and family. He had missed learning to bake from Bruce and learning how _not_ to cook from Tony. Bruce, it was plain, had missed it, too. 

“I know, um, I was in a future that hopefully will never exist, but, uh…” Bruce shrugged, dusting his hands with more flour. “Jane misses you, man. Or...I guess, _missed_ you, past tense. She was devastated when you never came back.”

“I love her too,” Thor murmured fondly. As soon as he was done with his duties to Fury today, he was going straight to her side. It had been far too long. 

“And, um, Heimdall? Cool dude.” Bruce cracked a little side smile. “Intimidating as hell, but very cool.” 

Thor let out a boom of laughter. “You had quite a time. Anything else I should know?”

Bruce hesitated, pressing his bread dough slowly and thoughtfully. Thor waited patiently while Bruce tried to find the words he wanted.

“Um...your mom,” said Bruce. “She...she still has hope for, um, Loki.” 

His expression was conflicted then and Thor could guess the worry in him. Thor wasn’t the only one who dwelled frequently on his failures at the Helicarrier, it seemed. 

“I don’t know.” Bruce sighed, placing the dough in a bowl and placing it by the heat of the oven. “I just thought you ought to, um, know that.”

“Thank you.” 

Thor supposed he still had hope for his brother, too. But now it was a cautious hope—a small ember tempered by experience. He was no longer blindly desperate for the brother he grew up with to return— _t_ _hat_ Loki was truly dead. He couldn’t predict what the future held, only that Loki would pay for his crimes against Midgard, and Thor would hold his heart at arm’s length unless Loki could earn it back. 

Thor got up to help Bruce take care of the dishes piled up in the sink—Tony insisted on a top-of-the-line dishwasher, and yet Bruce insisted that washing them by hand was therapeutic. As if drawn to the kitchen by the unnecessary noise of clinking dishes, Tony strode in, rolling his eyes. 

“I swear, why do I even bother,” he grumbled, heading straight for the coffee and snatching up a slice of bread on the way. He moaned loudly with each bite. 

“Do, uh, we need to leave you alone with that?” Bruce chuckled. 

Tony swallowed his mouthful. “Please keep baking bread forever.”

“There is another in the oven,” Thor told him, drying his hands on a tea towel. 

“Thank God. You guys don’t even know—the stuff they called _bread_ back there…” Tony shuddered. “I mean, yes, technically, I supposed the ingredients qualified, but this…dear _God,_ Bruce.”

Thor laughed, smacking Tony affectionately on the back. “It is a wonder you survived, Tony.”

“You’re telling me.” Tony snorted. “Hey, I wanted to ask you, as the resident otherworldly warrior, can you teach me sword-fighting?”

“ _Sword-fighting_?” Bruce paused in his scrubbing to raise his eyebrows at Tony. “I think your medieval adventures went to your head.”

“What?” Tony glanced between them. “I learned some moves, and I wanna do more of ‘em. Tell me you don’t want to be a badass with a sword, and I’ll call you a dirty liar, Banner.”

“I’d be honored, Stark.” Thor clapped Tony’s back again. “If you can keep up.”

Tony responded by shoving another entire slice of bread in his mouth—the _last_ piece, Thor noted, much too late—and stalking out of the kitchen, coffee pot in hand. 

“There’s another one in the oven,” Bruce reminded him, laughing at the expression on Thor’s face. 

* * *

**[ BRUCE ]**

* * *

At S.H.I.E.L.D., Fury wanted every detail they could muster up. For the Avengers who crashed into the past, he wanted to make sure they hadn’t torn a hole in history, and for those who went to the future, he was intent on doing what they could to find ways to avoid such future dystopias (including his own untimely death). 

Bruce filled out report after report on his experiences, while his teammates did the same. By mid-afternoon, Bruce was finally pulled into the main conference room to take his turn going over his journey with Fury and a couple other high-level agents. Towards the end of the recap, Fury called Natasha in, too. 

“Well, conclusions? Suggestions?” Fury folded his hands in his lap and leaned back in his chair. 

“Um,” Bruce glanced at Natasha.

She shrugged but answered, “From what I saw, somehow, our disappearance directly unbalanced the world as we know it.” 

She frowned a little, and Bruce knew the feeling. Even though he’d experienced it firsthand—a world overflowing with supervillains and chaos—it seemed impossible that it was because of them, this team, specifically. This ragtag group, inexplicably, was _that_ directly tied into the fabric of the universe that their removal set the future on a collision course to horror. They hadn’t even existed a couple years ago.

“One of the books I read basically said the disappearance of the Avengers created a void that was never filled. So now that we’re back...theoretically, our mere existence from here on should avoid a lot of the terrible things that happened.”

Bruce huffed. “Yeah, no pressure…”

Fury nodded thoughtfully. “Well, then, we start small. Keep doing what we’re doing—save lives, saving the planet. Fighting the good fight.”

“We do need to take steps to protect S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Bruce offered, remembering the Fury-of-the-future who spoke of lost bases and resources. 

“And everyone else,” Natasha added. “The future I saw captured, tortured, and killed anybody with powers. Enhanced, mutants, whatever you want to call them—they were as good as outlawed. Regular people weren’t much better off, unless you were born with the right set of talents and genes.”

Fury’s eyebrows drew together thoughtfully. “We have a lot of work to do.”

They tossed around a few more ideas and strategies as the other two agents took notes, and eventually Fury dismissed them to start researching. 

“Anything else?” asked Fury.

“Um, I’ve been thinking…” Bruce traced his fingers over his knuckles. “After all we went through—after hearing what the rest of the team did, I don’t think...I’m not sure if it was as random as it seemed.”

Fury leaned forward, planting his forearms on the table. “How so, Doctor?”

“We seemed to be on, uh, specific tracks of time,” said Bruce. He was still trying to untangle the possibilities in his mind. “Which seemed to be random, if you look at just one. But... when you put them all together, then you see a lot of coincidence.”

Natasha nodded. “Like Steve running into Lazarus.”

“Or Clint showing up to work with Peggy on a case he’d already read about, or me getting involved with S.H.I.E.L.D. in the future. The timing of it is so specific.”

“Are you saying somebody _wanted_ each of you to be in a specific place and time?” Fury raised his eyebrow. 

“Not exactly.” Bruce frowned. “We may never know exactly what Lazarus was intending or even how he did it, but just...looking over his findings and leftover parts in the future, and his files here and now, it’s...um, the more it seems like maybe he didn’t do this alone, and that everything that happened, _happened_. Somewhere.”

“Something _else_ meddled in this mess? Or are you saying you believe in destiny?” His tone made it clear he greatly disliked both options.

“The others went through time to make history happen the way it _already_ happened.” Bruce shrugged. “And we—Nat and I—were dropped into futures without us in them.”

“Like they wanted them to break the past by doing something different,” Natasha put in. “And make those futures come to pass. But we didn’t—we made the right history happen, instead. But if not Lazarus, then who?”

“I don’t know.”

 _Could it really be fate?_ Maybe he was trying to make something rational out of the chaos. Bruce tucked his arms against his chest. _We'll probably never really know._

Fury let out a deep sigh through his teeth. “This is a problem for another day.” He stood with an irritated grunt and gestured for them to leave the room. 

As Bruce exited, he distinctly heard Fury grumble, “I’m getting too old for this shit.” 

He and Natasha hadn’t gone far down the hall when a young agent caught up to them. “Dr. Banner? I have that information you asked for.”

“Oh, thanks.” He took the file from her and Natasha raised her eyebrow in question. “I was curious…”

He opened it to find only a handful of papers. Some school records, screenshots of Facebook pages, and a couple photos of a young, smiling girl with blonde hair and a laughing family. Warmth bloomed in his chest. 

“Who’s that?” Natasha said, peering at the photos. Her tone was airy but he could tell, she knew exactly who it was before he even answered. 

“That’s her—that’s, uh, Etta. She’s safe.”

Natasha’s lips twitched and Bruce shut the folder, passing it back to the agent, who nodded and headed away. 

“Don’t you dare say it,” Bruce warned. “I wanted to know that she’s okay. I’m never going to see her again—I just wanted to know.”

“That’s probably a good thing. You’re old enough to be her grandfather,” she teased.

Bruce rolled his eyes, but smiled. “I _just_ wanted to make sure she was safe.”

Natasha’s eyes sparkled like she very, _very_ much wanted to make several more inappropriate jokes, but for now, she merely patted his arm and walked with him back to the Quinjet to wait for the others. 

* * *

**[ STEVE ]**

* * *

Finished with his debrief, Steve strolled out of the conference room and down the hall, but stopped when he heard Maria Hill exclaim, “ _Holy fucking shit!”_

Steve poked his head in the door to her office. “Everything okay in here?”

Maria had her face buried in her hands but glanced up to gesture him inside. “Rogers, shut the door and c’mere.”

He did so and settled into the chair facing her desk. “What’s wrong?”

Maria shook her head, staring at him, like she couldn’t begin to find the words she wanted. He couldn’t quite decipher the look in her eyes.

“Hill?” he prompted. 

“There was this agent… His family bounced around for a bunch of years when he was a kid, but for a while, they were in Illinois, before they went back to Wisconsin. He went through a real rough patch back then, during which he lost a good friend.”

Steve straightened in his chair and his pulse quickened. His report was planted under Hill’s elbow. 

“He told me that he went off the rails when that happened—ditched his family, went to Chicago on his own for a while, skipped school, everything. Said he was sure he would’ve ended up dead or in jail if he hadn’t run into some guy who helped him big time. That guy—he helped him out of a really bad situation and put his life back on track—said he was his _guardian angel_.”

“Maria…” Steve began, taking a breath to corral his racing thoughts. “Are you...are you telling me that you _knew_ the kid I met? You knew Michael?” 

“So did you, Steve. And his name wasn’t Michael.” Maria levelled her gaze at him. “It was Phil Coulson.”

Steve blinked. “No, no, no…No way.”

“I promise you—he told me the story himself, years ago. And I just read it right here, right now in your report. It _was_ Phil.”

“Holy...shit.” 

It was impossible, but he pictured the kid’s face and it fit. _That_ was why he’d looked so familiar, but Steve couldn’t ever place him. He didn’t know Phil as well as Clint or Nat did, and Phil had only just come back from T.A.H.I.T.I. a couple weeks before the whole incident. They’d had several debriefs with him, but not a lot of time outside of work yet.

Steve gaped and smacked his hand on her desk. “Shit, Maria, _shit_ —the cards! The _cards_ —”

“What?”

Steve pressed his hands to his forehead, his mind reeling, trying to untangle his thoughts. How did this happen—how _could it_ have happened—

“Steve, _what?”_

“ _I_ gave him the cards,” he managed. “Maria, the vintage set that he had in his coat when he—when Loki— _I_ bought them from a—from a pawn shop in 1977. I picked them out because I remembered some of the ones Phil—current Phil—had in his collection, so I knew they were good. I...”

It was Maria’s turn to gape and stare.

“He—Michael— _Phil_ ,” Steve sputtered, “He was a big Captain America fan and when I saw the cards, I wanted to do something nice for him, so I...” He leaned back in his chair and scrubbed his hand over his face. “Holy fucking _shit,_ Maria. How…?”

Maria flopped back in her chair. “I need a drink.”

* * *

**[ CLINT ]**

* * *

By the end of the week when just about every aspect of everyone’s adventure had been exhausted by Fury, S.H.I.E.L.D., and each other, Tony—of course—tried to make the whole thing into a drinking game. 

And honestly if Tony didn’t, Clint would’ve, because how else were the Avengers going to deal with a bunch of wild-ass jumps through time if not for copious jokes, teasing, and alcohol? So Thor broke out his fancy Asgardian brew for him and Steve, Tony made himself a fancy cocktail, Clint poured solo shots, and Bruce and Nat sipped beer. They gathered around the kitchen island, laden with snacks while they waited for tonight’s cornucopia of takeout to arrive. 

“I had it the worst,” Tony announced, holding his glass up high. “I definitely had it the worst—Dark Ages win by a mile. Everybody drink!”

“Now, hold on,” said Steve, raising his finger. “I got hit by a car.”

“You also got to see the original _Star Wars_ in the theater, opening weekend,” Clint countered. “Man, how come _I_ didn’t get thrown to 1977? That would’ve been rad as hell, seeing the OG back when nobody had any clue how one movie would basically steer science fiction culture for the next century.”

“I was sucked out before Vader showed up, though.” Steve pretended to pout and Natasha rolled her eyes.

“I have to agree.” Bruce nodded. “Maybe if he’d stayed for the whole movie, but the first, what, seven minutes hardly counts.” He passed the bowl of chips across the counter so Thor could grab a mighty mouthful.

“Okay, but, I got shot in the chest and thought I’d lost my arm?” Clint tried. “Does that beat getting hit by a car?”

“I also got shot,” Natasha added. “Twice. And the whole future dystopia thing.”

“I got shot, too!” Steve raised his hand, oddly proud, then snatched the chip bowl from Thor.

“I _did_ lose my arm.” Thor leaned back in his chair, looking smug. “And fought _myself_ —had to deal with a Void entity.”

“Still attached,” Tony put in, poking Thor’s meaty bicep. “Doesn’t count.”

Clint held up his finger. “Ah, but then by that logic, _nobody’s_ injuries count, since we were all reset physically. No bullet wounds, lost arms, broken ribs, and whatever the hell else.” He poured a handful of Skittles into his hand and methodically picked out all the green ones, handing them across the island to Bruce, whose hand was already outstretched. 

“I lost the Hulk,” offered Bruce.

“Good thing or bad thing?” Steve wondered, passing the chips to Tony. Natasha snatched a couple from Steve’s pile while he was distracted.

Bruce shrugged, but smiled and said, “Jury’s out.” He tossed back his handful of green Skittles. 

“I nearly _died_ ,” Tony pressed, feigning exasperation.

“Me too,” said Clint, swallowing his candy. “Also, probably everybody.”

“C’mon, I _totally_ win.”

“ _Drink_ ,” Clint, Natasha, and Thor chanted. All six of them took a hearty sip of their drinks, though, including Tony, who grumbled but did it anyway. 

“I mean, if it counts for _everybody_ , then it’s not really going with the rules.” He rolled his eyes dramatically. He gathered a handful of Doritos.

“You were the farthest out if we number the years,” Steve said, clapping Tony on the shoulder. “We’ll all take a shot for that. Happy?”

“It’ll do.” Tony sniffed, though he couldn’t quite suppress his grin as the rest of the Avengers each downed whiskey shots. 

Natasha found Clint’s hand under the table and held it tight. He looked from her to Steve, who wanted a retelling of the Void monster from Thor, while Tony started regaling them with the tale of his duel—for the fourth time that night. Bruce beamed at them, and Clint couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen the guy so relaxed—like he’d finally let himself fit into the group, once and for all. 

Clint knew the feeling. Like the warmth of being with the family you _chose_ instead of the one you were born with had filled up your chest until you were almost floating off the ground from it.

This group of knuckleheads, of insomniacs, superheroes, and piping, hot messes. These people, these fellow Avengers. 

His family, his home. 

**THE END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Was that the point of all this? A statement?_
> 
> _A promise._
> 
> (Also, there is an epilogue - so stayed tuned.)


	17. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you wanted to know what happened to the rest of your favs... this epilogue is for you. Also, I literally have an entire file of unused time travel quotes I gathered for this epic, so if you ever randomly want some time travel quotes, hit me up. XD 
> 
> Here we are, this is the final, final chapter in the entire epic. THANK YOU TO [WIP BANG](https://wipbigbang.livejournal.com/), because without your deadlines and the awesome people doing art and cheering each other on, I'd probably still be writing this beast. XD
> 
> Lastly, just in case, but: **this chapter contains MAJOR SPOILERS for parts 1 and 2.**

* * *

**EPILOGUE**

_Jack: “I don’t believe in destiny.”  
_ _Locke: “Yes, you do. You just don’t know it yet.”  
_ _– LOST_

* * *

**[ SCOTLAND, 1128 ]**

Alric pressed himself into the cover of some thick brambles when shouts and hasty footsteps rushed his way. A group of Scotsmen thundered past, hollering about witchcraft, and Alric waited patiently until the forest had long fallen still again. 

He had managed to slip out of his cell early that morning during a commotion when the last of the English prisoners were being trotted out for the second day of Lady Brae’s tournament. He kept himself hidden, carefully picking his way through the woods, avoiding the Scotsmen intent on tracking down stragglers. 

His patience, it seemed, had been rewarded. 

Alric came to a clearing near a stream and found Dommal at the base of a towering tree. He flew to his friend’s side, dropping to his knees. Dommal was horribly pale and unmoving. He checked Dommal’s breathing—was he even still alive?

_Barely_.

“Dommal?” Alric whispered, touching the boy’s shoulder, careful not to aggravate his injury. 

The boy stirred, and it seemed a herculean effort for him to open his eyes. His cracked lips spread into a weak smile. 

“Alric,” he greeted, his voice so faint, Alric almost couldn’t hear him over the trickling stream. “You...made...it.”

“I did.” Alric gave him a nod. His heart hung heavy with sorrow in his chest. It was clear at a glance that his friend was near death and would not see the sunset. 

He had no intention of leaving him. At nightfall, he would give his friend a proper burial. There was a trade route perhaps a day’s walk from here and come morning, he would make for it. He would be cautious in these woods, with Lady Brae’s men on the prowl, but was confident he would manage to barter passage to friendlier lands. He would get word to Dommal’s family back in Berwick and be sure his friend’s memory was honored. 

Alric cleared his throat, trying to hide his heartache. “Where is Sir Tony?” he asked.

The ground had been torn up as though a minor skirmish had taken place, but otherwise there was no sign of the other man. 

“Bright...light…” Dommal managed. “I think...think he was…” He trailed off in a coughing fit and blood spattered over his chin. 

Alric moved his hand to support Dommal’s neck. Thinking of his conversation with Sir Tony in the cell—how impossible yet utterly true he had been—he smiled.

_So either I’m stuck here forever or one day I’ll just ‘poof’ and be gone. That’s the theory, anyways._

“He has gone home, I think, Sir Dommal.” Alric’s eyes stung. To lose two friends in one day was no easy undertaking, no matter the circumstances. “As...as will you, very soon.”

Dommal raised a shaking hand to grasp Alric’s arm. “I always thought...thought I would be ready.” He swallowed thickly. “Always thought...it would be at the end...of a sword. In...battle.”

“You fought bravely, as you always have,” Alric assured him, blinking fiercely. “And I will see you again soon.”

Dommal let his hand drop to his lap. “Thank you...bud-dee.” He chuckled a little, and choked, leaning into Alric’s arm for support. 

“Shh,” Alric whispered. “Rest now. Be still, my friend.”

The coolness of the morning gave way to midday heat, and Alric stayed with Dommal. The boy’s breathing grew shallower and shallower, and Alric filled the silence with soft stories of the impossible things Sir Tony had told him. 

“Be at peace, Sir Dommal.”

Dommal’s eyes slid shut. Alric touched his forehead to Dommal’s, and listened as Dommal’s breaths faded to silence.

“Goodbye, my friend.”

  
  


* * *

**[ NEW YORK, 1946 ]**

* * *

The machine was little more than a pile of debris where it’d crashed to the floor. Howard’s sledgehammer lay beside it and Peggy stared at it for a long time before she looked to Howard, seated on the stool beside her.

“I just don’t understand it,” she said.

Howard scrubbed his hand over his face. “It wasn’t at our end. Whatever it was...it didn’t come from here.”

Peggy pressed her lips together, toying with the scrap of fabric between her fingers. She’d clung so desperately to Clint as he was snatched away from her that his sleeve had torn. She had not been ready for him to leave yet—she had so much she still wanted to ask him, so much she wanted to say, for him to pass on to Steve.

“Guess it was his time,” Howard said dully. 

He’d never say it, but she knew it was true for him, too. So many things left forever unsaid.

Peggy swallowed. _Tell Steve I love him_ . She rubbed her thumb over the fabric. _Tell him I miss him all the time. That we never had enough time. Tell Steve I went to Stork Club anyways, and I said goodbye. That I’ve gone there the same day the past two years in his memory._

She sighed. “Well. I guess it’s over now.” She stood and smoothed her hands down her skirt. She cast another sad look at the broken machine and took a step towards the door.

“It doesn’t have to be,” Howard murmured, so softly she almost didn’t hear him.

“What do you mean?” 

There was something a little manic about Howard then—more the genius with a proclivity for chaotic, unstable experiments than her friend.

“I was building it anyway.” He gripped the edge of his stool, and a fire lit his eyes. “We could do it—we could still do it, Peg.”

“Do _what_ , Howard?” She wanted to hear him say it—needed him to voice the dangerous idea before she let herself make assumptions and imagine the worst. 

“Find him,” he said, his voice darkness over gravel. “Stop him. Change it.”

For a moment, Peggy really did consider it. She regarded the ruined machine, imagined about Howard fixing it and finishing it, testing it. Probably exploding something he didn’t intend to. And that they went back in time—before the plane, before dozens of battles with Hydra, maybe even all the way to Erskine. 

And what if they could change it all? What then?

Would she still fall in love if Steve’s path was completely changed? Would the Commandos still have formed? And what about Barnes, Steve’s best friend? If Steve’s journey was altered, would he still be able to rescue Barnes from Zola’s clutches? 

The questions were endless, and impossible, and she understood the wariness that Clint had carried with him so much of the time. She understood the way he tiptoed around conversations or swore her to secrecy, because messing with time presented not only endless variables for change but also _endless_ variables for unintended consequences—and damage. 

She thought back to Clint’s first night in the house, when they’d discussed their lives, and Steve.

_He finally found his place,_ Clint had said. 

Peggy looked to Howard. “We couldn’t do that to him.”

“Why not?” He jumped off his stool. “Hell, we could just turn it back enough so that we can find the plane—follow it and get him out, right away. What harm could that do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Exactly! So why don’t we at least try?”

“Because I don’t _know_ , Howard,” Peggy bit out, and he finally seemed to stop buzzing with possibilities and look at her properly. “And neither do you. Once upon a time, Steve belonged here with us, but history—time, destiny, fate, whatever you’d like to call it…took him on another path.”

“Screw fate!” He threw a wrench across the table, and it clanked noisily to the floor.

“This—us, S.H.I.E.L.D? That is _our_ path,” she pressed. “History cannot form the same way without it. And...the Avengers need him. He needs them.”

“More than us?” Howard’s eyes glistened, the fight draining out of him. 

Peggy rushed to hug her friend. Hope was a wonderful thing, but it was terrible to watch it sour on Howard’s face. She squeezed him tight and blinked the sting away from her own eyes. 

“More than us,” she whispered. 

_Tell Steve that Howard and I are going to the Stork Club together next time. He misses you too, as dearly as I do._

Howard sucked in a shuddering breath and backed out of her embrace.

“Well, it was a thought.” He dashed his palm over his eyes and retrieved the wrench he’d thrown. He got to work disassembling the machine. 

Peggy helped him, and despite Howard’s moment of desperation, his shoulders were lighter the more the machine came apart. The _potential_ had been worse than anything, she realized. 

_Tell Steve that I know I’m supposed to stay here, and that my heart is okay. We will be all right._

Jarvis came to get them for supper, when the lab was almost back to normal. The machine parts were either destroyed or piled in bins for later use, and Howard’s warm twinkle had returned to his eyes. 

“All right Peg, let’s grab some grub.” He wiped his hands, black with grease, on a rag. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to dine with Angie instead?” Her tone was as light and casual as can be, though she had the satisfaction of Howard jolting as though he’d walked smack into a door. 

“She’s out, isn’t she,” he said quickly. “Or she might be out—she’s _usually_ out in the evenings. I don’t know where she is. I don’t keep track of her.” 

Peggy raised her eyebrow.

“Ah…” Howard’s cheeks flushed. He was hardly ever embarrassed, and it was quite endearing. “How long have you known?”

“Hmm.” Peggy’s heels clicked across the lab floor as she walked to the door. “I believe it was after your...third unofficial date.”

Howard balked. “That was eight months ago!”

She eyed him. “I would be rather piss-poor at my job if I didn’t know what was going on under my own roof, wouldn’t you say?”

“But you never _said_ —you never—we’ve been—you said you’d murder me in my sleep,” Howard spluttered, and indignantly added, “It’s _my_ roof.”

“Howard, really. The mere fact that you, of all people, have been working so hard to keep it a secret shows me exactly how serious it is.” She pushed open the door to the lab and Howard followed, muttering under his breath. “Hence why I never said a word.”

“You could’ve saved us the trouble of lying to you all this time,” he grumbled.

“And what fun would that be?” She linked her arm with Howard’s and he pouted all the way to the kitchen. 

Ana greeted them with a sunshine smile, and Jarvis directed them to the dining room, where Angie was already wolfing down a plateful of pasta. She was halfway out the door by the time Peggy and Howard sat, and neither of them had a chance to inform Angie that the gig was up. 

Peggy rather suspected that they both enjoyed the secrecy all the same, so when Howard groaned, “Are you going to tell her?” she replied innocently, “About what?”

Howard grinned and passed her the salad bowl. 

Peggy looked from Howard to the little collection of photos on the wall: Peggy and the Commandos, Angie at the diner, Jarvis and Ana’s wedding portrait, Steve. Her chest bloomed with warmth.

_Tell him…_

_Tell him I’m glad he’s all right. We’re both where we belong._

  
  


* * *

**[ CHICAGO, 1977 ]**

* * *

Irma cast a sideways glance at Michael in the passenger’s seat. While not normally a chatterbox, he had been uncharacteristically quiet the whole drive to the bus station. 

“Did you want to talk about it?” she asked, for the third time since they left her apartment this morning. 

Michael looked out the window, frowning. “I just don’t understand how he... _disappeared._ ”

“Well, angels can’t stay forever,” Irma replied. “Once their job is done, they move on.”

Michael shook his head. “He wasn’t an angel.”

“What else could he have been, then?” said Irma, pulling into a parking space. 

Of course, she knew Steve had really been Captain America—impossibly, inexplicably, incomprehensibly —because of some sort of time travel nonsense. But it was a helluva lot easier to simply attribute his presence the last couple weeks to “act of God” rather than science fiction mumbo jumbo. 

“I don’t know,” Michael murmured. “It just doesn’t make sense.” He pushed open the passenger door and climbed out. 

Irma suppressed a knowing smile and retrieved his duffel bag from the trunk. Michael didn’t have much to his name, but Irma had filled his bag with snacks, clothes she’d been intending to donate, and a package of comic books she’d bought him for the road. She tucked her arm around his shoulders and walked him to buy his ticket, then waited on the bench with him. 

Michael’s ears reddened. “You don’t have to wait,” he said mildly. “I promised Steve I was going to go home, and I meant it.”

“It’s giving me something to do on my day off,” Irma replied, ruffling Michael’s hair. Maybe she had taken the day off in order to drive Michael to the bus station, but he didn’t need to know that. “Besides, if Steve went home, then it’s my job to make sure you get home safe, Michael.”

He stifled a sniffle, hastily wiping his face, and Irma pretended not to notice.

“You don’t have to call me Michael anymore,” he mumbled. 

Irma thought she might melt on the spot as she looked at this incredible fifteen-year-old boy. He’d fallen into her life—busting into her diner, becoming a regular, bringing out the mothering side of her that had faded when she’d lost her son to Vietnam. Not to mention trying to take on a crime lord, all by himself. _At fifteen_. 

Deep blue eyes, still making his way in the world, still figuring out how to leave his mark. She was going to miss him deeply.

“I know, Phil,” she murmured. “But you’ve been Michael to me for _months._ It’s a hard habit to drop.”

When the bus pulled up, they stood, and Michael—Phillip, but he preferred Phil—scooped up his duffel and bid her goodbye. He’d taken about seven steps away from her, and Irma was trying damn hard not to cry, when Phil rushed back to hug her. 

“Thank you for believing me—for everything.” He held her tight. “I’ll write. I’ll call.”

Irma patted his back. “Of course you will.”

She knew he might at first, but a fifteen-year-old boy would have more important things to do than write to an old diner owner in Chicago. He’d soon forget, and she’d miss him, but they’d move on and keep their memories close. She waved to him until the bus was out of sight, and she drove home in Sal’s old beater with a fond smile on her face. 

Time was, though, Irma enjoyed the letters from Phil that came regularly for the next six months, and the six months after that. When it was going on three years, she realized he wasn’t going away anytime soon, and she kept all his letters in shoeboxes in her closet. When Irma was seventy-three, she was shocked and thrilled when a young S.H.I.E.L.D. agent visited her on her birthday. He came to Sal’s funeral in 1998, and four years later, Phil—now living in New York—even came to Chicago for her birthday.

Two weeks before Irma passed away in her sleep at Briar Meadows retirement home, Phil’s eyes twinkled with unbridled excitement when he visited.

“You’re not going to believe it,” he said, and he looked so handsome in his black suit and blue tie—it really brought out his eyes. “Irma, we found _Captain America_ in the ice—we found his plane. And he’s _still alive_. Can you believe it?”

Irma patted his hand and smiled. “Well, now, how about that?”

* * *

**[ NEW AUSTRALIA, 2176 ]**

* * *

The room was cragging white when he opened his eyes, and panic shot through Garrett like he’d been jabbed with a Pocker’s baton. They got him, and he couldn’t remember how, couldn’t remember when— 

The images slipped through his mind like sand through his fingers, and he couldn’t hold any long enough to latch. There were gunshots and a bright light and brilliant red hair and _shit,_ the compound, the tech, the— _holy cragging hell_ , this was what being bleached must be like. His memories swirled and blurred and he was so, so damn dizzy. 

A nurse rushed into the room as Garrett practically threw himself off the bed. 

“Garrett, hey—whoa, calm down, lay down—” She waved her hands at him.

The world tilted and the floor wasn’t stable.

“You’ve had an accident—Garrett, _lay down._ ”

“You call getting _shot_ an accident?” He snarled. Shit, he was in no condition to fight her. He crashed into the IV stand. He didn’t feel shot—bruised and hella sore, yeah, but not shot. That was Coal tech for you. Sew you up, shiny and new, send you on your little repurposed way to…

To…

_Where the crag do they send you?_ He couldn’t remember. And weirder, when the nurse hurried over to help him, her wrist wasn’t tattooed. Neither was his. 

Everything was so damn foggy. Why would his wrist be tattooed? Red mountains and a bunker… 

No. EMPs and Coals and Scuds and… 

_Ems_...

Wasn’t his father shot? Wasn’t _he_ shot? Who was shot?

He couldn’t remember. Everything was blurry, but at least the room wasn’t pinwheeling anymore. What the hell had he just been dreaming about? Damn vivid, that.

“You were under anesthesia,” said the nurse. Her touch was gentle but firm as she eased him up off the floor. “You _just_ woke up—you need to give yourself some recovery time, Garrett. Breathe.”

“Oh my God, Garrett,” another voice sounded from the doorway. He had an impression of wavy, sun-gold hair rushing at him, and then between the nurse and the other woman, he was back on the bed. “Are you okay?”

“Keen,” he spit out, eyes shut. Ribs hurt, head hurt. He wasn’t in danger after all—whatever nightmare he’d been having had packed a right after-punch.

And then, he opened his eyes, and holy cragging _shit_ —it was Ems. He grabbed her arm to verify she was real and she looked at him like he was completely sideways or mega-ill, and either way, her skin was true under his fingers.

“Please don’t fling yourself out of the bed—I was just trying to get you a little caff.” She pointed to the generic coffee cups on the tray table. 

He let go of her, relaxing into his piled up pillows. “I thought...I dunno. Just a real intense, bizarro feeling. Opposite of deja vu.” To the nurse, he grimaced. “Sorry.”

The nurse stepped back from checking him over and exhaled. “No harm done, but I really wouldn’t recommend anything strenuous this right quick after surgery.” 

Garrett touched his hand to his side, above his hip where the bullet…no, where the…There was nothing there, but there wasn’t supposed to be, either. That dream had been _damn_ vivid.

“Surgery?” he said and it was normal that his sister was here, with her long golden hair and secret smile. It was normal, it was impossible, it was real. 

“He’s bound to be groggy and confused at first,” the nurse told Ems kindly. “But it’ll wear off.” She moved to check Garrett’s chart on a holoscreen along the wall, and Garrett watched her every move, though he wasn’t sure why. 

“Hello? Earth to Garrett?” 

A tendril of water, twisting and floating in the air like gravity didn’t exist, moved past his eyes. Garrett turned to see Ems twirling her fingers in soft, elaborate patterns, the water trailing from her cup. She curled her fingers and spun her wrist and the water looped to form the word _Hi._

Garrett grinned and the muscles felt rusty—must be the anesthesia. “Show off.”

“You got, flaunt it, as they say.” Ems floated the water back into her cup. “Glad you’re keen. Had me worried for a minute.”

“Can’t latch what happened,” Garrett mumbled. He could’ve sworn that everything was wrong, but...nothing _was_ wrong. He glanced at his wrist, still void of any tattoos. He couldn’t picture ever having a tattoo in his life, so his wrist shouldn’t feel blank without one.

“That might be because you decided to drive your own skiff to the med center while your appendix was bursting,” Ems said, glaring at him. “And you basically crashed on the front lawn. So they had to fix your insides _and_ your head, you idiot.”

He vaguely recalled that, now that she said it. Why the crag had he thought he’d been shot?

“I think I had a wacko dream,” he said slowly, trying to sort his confusion. “Something...hella apocalyptic and...dystopian.” He frowned. It was a vague, muddy afterimage fading away, now. “You were gone...and then Dad, he…I think I punched him?”

“Dad?” Ems raised her eyebrow. “Well, since he passed away from a heart attack about nine years ago, I’d say your imagination was definitely working overtime.”

Right. He remembered the funeral. 

Slowly, his memories began to meld back together, and the fog receded. Mom and Dad moved to England two years after Garrett graduated college, and Ems stayed in Australia with him—they beamed back for birthdays and holidays. Garrett and Ems had rented a cozy apartment in Port Augusta—he had an engineering job, she was applying to be a physical therapist, catering to EP’s—Enhanced People—like her. 

“I missed you?” Garrett blurted, and he wasn’t sure why. He’d only been under for a short time, but there was a sideways kinda ache in his heart when he looked at Ems.

“Okay, weirdo.” She got up to grab him his caff.

A woman passed by the door—another patient, glancing idly in his room as she went—and Garrett’s heart sped up.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Wait!”

She paused in his doorway. “Who, me?”

She had long dark hair and sweet eyes, but he knew she was wicked smart and could be cuttingly sarcastic. He had never seen her before.

“Yumi?” he asked, trying the name on his tongue.

She quirked her head. “Sorry, do I know you?”

Garrett stared, and realized Ems was watching him like he was right sideways again. 

“Sorry, I thought…” He tugged his fingers through his hair. “Never mind.” 

She gave him a confused sort of nod, and a weird little wistful smile, and went on her way. 

“What was that about?” Ems handed him his caff.

Garrett shook his head. The anesthesia had really cracked his brain. “I think she was in my dream. _Cragging_ vivid, that.”

“Weird.” Ems sipped her water.

“Yeah… Hey, could we go for a walk or something?” 

“Walk? Pretty sure the nurse wants you to stay put.”

Garrett tossed her a wink. “Me, I’m a rebel.” 

Some sort of heavy, unnameable emotion panged in his chest. Everything was as it should be, as it always had been. He brushed away the last sensations of the sideways, anesthesia-induced dream, thankful he didn’t live in that kind of a nightmare reality. 

As Ems brought him outside into the Australian sun, she promised him ice cream and a trip to the holo-theatre once he was free of the med center. She toyed with the water from the fountain, making patterns and shapes to entertain other people out for a walk. A little boy no more than eight or so touched the water trails to turn them to ice, and giggled with glee when they fell in ice chunks all over the grass.

As the wind blew, Garrett thought of the color red. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it. is. done. \o/
> 
> (About Steve and Peggy: I know, I know, _Endgame_ , and I loved that for them. But I said what I said, and I stand by it.)
> 
> Thank you for reading, thank you for kudosing and commenting (it literally means the world to me!!), thank you for sticking with me through any part of this - whether you read part 1 back when or are just reading this now or binged it in between, whatever the case may be: _thank you_. <333


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